


Ne Plus Ultra, Mycroft Holmes

by Rector



Series: Cate and Mycroft Stories [10]
Category: Sherlock BBC
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 01:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 63,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rector/pseuds/Rector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A romance. Whitehall wolves, witchcraft, Black Widows and The Bank of England. A Cate and Mycroft story</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Acknowledgements:
> 
> This is a non-profit homage based upon characterisations developed by Messrs. Moffat, Gatiss and Thompson for the BBC series Sherlock. The character of Mycroft has been brought to life through the acting skills of Mr Gatiss. No transgression of copyright or licence is intended.
> 
> #
> 
> Note:
> 
> This narrative is tenth in a series. Your enjoyment of this story will likely be enhanced if you read the sequence in chronological order:
> 
> 1\. The Education of Mycroft Holmes
> 
> 2\. Cate and Mycroft: The Wedding
> 
> 3\. Mycroft Holmes: A Terminal Degree
> 
> 4\. Mycroft Holmes and the Trivium Protocol
> 
> 5\. Mycroft Holmes in Excelsis
> 
> 6\. The Double-First of Mycroft Holmes
> 
> 7\. Mycroft Holmes: Master of Secrets
> 
> 8\. The Sabbatical of Mycroft Holmes
> 
> 9\. Mycroft Holmes: Tabula Rasa

_A Strange Kind of Death – A Difficult Decision – Bloody Meetings – A Gathering in Whitechapel – The Family Holmes – La Juris – Conspirators – Latrodectus Britannia – The Last of Three – The End of a Public Servant._

#

#

The first body was found partially slumped over on a sheltered Regent's Park bench, where it had sat, perfectly unmolested, for more than twenty-four hours, its eventual discovery the result of a badly-kicked football and several inquisitive children.

Detective-Inspector Lestrade watched on as his forensic people did their work. The cordoning of the crime scene; the collection of gross evidence; the photographs, the beginning of a finessed on-scene investigation and analysis.

"No immediate or obvious idea," the new guy, Collins, or Colin-something, shook his head in response to his DI's question. "There's no sign of blood, no obvious physical trauma. There are no entry or exit-wounds that we can see from an initial examination, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. If it were murder, then it doesn't look like he was killed here, is what I'm saying," he added. "No signs of a struggle, nobody called in complaining about an argument or a fight," Collins-something paused. "Unless it was a toxin of some sort, of course, in which case it was slow-acting and he could have absorbed it anyplace."

" _Could_ it have been poison?" Greg stared at the corpse again, a thin man in his mid-years. Though the body was in rigor, it didn't look like a painful death, the opposite, in fact. There was a peaceful, relaxed expression on his face, apart from the eyes, of course. They were wide open in horrified surprise, as if witnessing something terrible beyond the realm of human sight. It was the look of a man who suddenly realised he was about to die. Other than that, death seemed to have taken him almost unawares. Perhaps he had closed his eyes for a brief doze in the park and woken just at the point his heart had stopped.

If it had been slow-acting poison, then the man could surely have called for help – even though the bench was partially hidden by trees, people would have heard a call for help.

And the other problem with the hypothesis of natural causes of course, and where the idea of _wrongful_ death came in, was that this was the _wrong_ kind of corpse for _that_ kind of death to have happened with any sense of credibility. If it had been a homeless person, then Lestrade could have credited the idea with hardly a second thought: he had seen enough heavily-bundled up bodies in doorways after a freezing night to know that it happened. But this man was well-dressed in a very proper suit and shiny shoes, out for a stroll after lunch; immaculately groomed with clean, soft hands; clearly a professional person, probably worked in the City. His wallet had just been found in his pocket, untouched, and he was wearing an expensive watch. But there was no outdoor coat or briefcase; he hadn't intended to be outside for any length of time, nor was he on the way home from the office. If he had been unexpectedly missing for more than a day and a night, _someone_ would have _noticed_.

But nothing had been said, no missing person alarm raised in the borough. This was either _extraordinary_ bad luck, incredible coincidence, or ... it wasn't an accident. Only an autopsy would be any help now and only then if it provided a clear indication as to why the man died.

Frowning, Lestrade took the wallet Collins held out to him, wondering afresh why a banker maybe, or a lawyer or a ... he opened the wallet and checked ... _ah_ ; Whitehall Civil Servant, would end up peacefully dead on a bench in some public gardens. And what a Whitehall pen-pusher was doing all the way up in Regent's Park without a coat was another question. Maybe it was just one of those inexplicable deaths. Such things happened; a strange and unique kind of death.

Unless, of course, it happened again.

 

###

"Are you ready?" Mycroft's voice was steady and calm as he looked into her eyes.

Cate met his gaze with a mildly exasperated stare. "Yes, now will you _please_ get on with it," she muttered, breathing deep and steeling herself.

They were in the kitchen where the light was best. The table was laid out with cotton-wool, sterile gauze, antiseptic; tweezers, a fine scalpel in a sterilized packet and ... needles.

Placing his wife's hand palm-up on the table, Mycroft worked a jeweller's loupe into his right eye, leaning forward and lifting her hand into the light.

"This is quite nasty and will probably hurt," he murmured, examining her right forefinger and picking up the scalpel. "What did you say you were doing? _Abseiling?_ "

"For the new book," Cate bit her bottom lip as his deft fingers manipulated the wound into clearer view. For such a small thing, it was indeed on the painful side.

Clamping her jaw shut, she took another deep breath and turned her thoughts to a different issue, something that had been increasingly on her mind the last few months. She had hoped they could have avoided the sort of conversation she now envisaged, but Mycroft appeared blind, deaf and dumb to the problem.

"There," he said, a satisfied note in his voice. "Got the wretched thing. Something of a monster, considering."

Cate relaxed her tensed shoulders and looked at the offending article now firmly grasped by tweezers in her husband's hand. A shard of clear plastic, the width of a human hair, had been driven deeply into her skin when she neglected the use of climbing gloves. As splinters went, it had been vicious.

She felt the sting of an antiseptic-soaked ball of cotton pressed firmly onto the tiny reddened cut. "Ow. Thank you."

"Next time, do remember your gloves," Mycroft replaced the stinging swab with an expertly-applied piece of sticking-plaster, before lifting her finger back into the light for a final critical inspection. His eyes returned to hers and he smiled affectionately. " _Abseiling?_ "

Her heart gave its usual little hop when he sounded like that. She smiled back, her fingers curling around his. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the back of Cate's knuckles. "Are you kissing it better?" her smile got wider.

"I am," he murmured quietly, kissing her palm and lifting it to the side of his face while he looked at her. "I always shall."

As her stomach got in on the hopping act, Cate realised now was a perfect moment to bring up The Problem.

"Darling, while we're here," she paused, curling her fingers around his. "We should talk about the children going to school," she held fast to his hand, pre-empting any dash for freedom.

Mycroft leaned back in his chair, narrowing his eyes.

Still holding him, Cate brought her other hand into play and held his long fingers between hers. "They need to go to school," she said, stroking along each digit up to the very tip. "If you look at this reasonably, you'll see I'm right."

He met her gaze. "I disagree," he blinked, slowly. "There's still time."

"Mycroft, you know, of all people, that I'm the one who most wanted to put this off for as long as we could, but pretending this problem doesn't exist is unhelpful and potentially damaging."

"Darling," he suddenly bent forward, taking her hands in his, his deep blue gaze measuring her determination. "Why the rush?" he asked, lifting a finger to push a lock of dark hair away from her cheek. "They're barely more than babes-in-arms."

"They're five, Mycroft, and asking more questions than an undergraduate student," Cate shook her head. "They're hurtling through books nearly as fast as they can download them and the Librarians at the university collection have asked me in perfect seriousness if they can both be given library-cards. They're voracious for information and ideas and intellectual stimulation and neither you nor I have the time or the ability to meet all their needs," Cate squeezed his hand in hers. "They require a more constant input than we can give them, she paused. "They need to go to school."

The notion that two of the most precious things in his world might leave his ability to entirely protect and care for them sat like a lump of undigested food in his gut. That the next step the twins would take meant cutting one of the greatest and most rewarding connections he had ever experienced _bar none_ left him profoundly discontented. He did not want his children, the two things he _still_ considered the most incredible product of his life to date, to be estranged from him in even the slightest sense. He did not want to feel supplanted as the key figure of information in their young lives. He did not want to feel he was losing them. He did not want them to leave ... him.

None of which, of course, was in the slightest part logical or relevant, but if he were being honest, it was how he felt.

"We could engage one or more tutors ..." he raised his eyebrows in question. "I know of several, highly-recommended scholastic organisations which ..." he stopped. The look in Cate's eyes suggested his proposal was falling on stony ground.

"Darling, they need more than knowledge and data," she said, curling her fingers more tightly around his. "They need exposure to different ways of thinking, different perspectives of life. They need society and friends."

"They have all manner of friends," Mycroft pulled Cate's hand across the table and stared down at it as he thought. "How many turned up for the juvenescent bacchanalia that was their most recent birthday party? There were at least eight of them in the front lounge before I ..." he waggled the fingers of one hand in the air.

"Before you ran away and hid in your office," Cate smiled, remembering. "Yes, my love, I know," she paused. "But those children are developing a little differently than Blythe and Jules and I can already see how Blythe looks at some of them," Cate hunted for the right analogy. "She's starting to look like Sherlock does when he's bored, as if the other children are tadpoles in a jar, and I don't want our children inheriting their uncle's less positive traits when we are in a position to do something about it."

If anything was likely to make Mycroft revise his thinking, it would be the idea that either Jules or Blythe might suffer through a similar adolescence and young adulthood as had Sherlock. Because of his brother's terrifying brilliance and utter precociousness, he had been left much to his own education. It had not been entirely to the good.

He did not want his children to suffer.

He did not want his children to leave.

He would consider the situation.

Lifting Cate's fingers, he pressed them thoughtfully to his lips. 

###

The room was still and cold; he preferred it that way. The cooler the environment, the better his mind worked. It was almost like a drug, the cold; the clarity of mind one might expect from anything in the current phenethylamine class. Cold made his thoughts as sharp and as lucid as glass, as _ice_. Ironic.

He rarely left these rooms anymore. He preferred not to have to meet people, not to talk to any of them. None of that was important, really. He just needed an endless stream of data and a sufficiently cool room, and he could analyse any scenario, resolve any problem.

This was good; it was his job, he'd done it for years. But now something was changing. He'd first observed the odd wrinkle in the line of data several months before. Now he was seeing them nearly every day.

There was something huge working beneath the everyday world. He wondered if he'd been the only one to spot it so far. But then he knew others would have seen, too.

He was one of three, only and always _three_. Each had their own specialised sphere of influence, although there were many points of confluence.

His was _money_ ; money in the broadest of all possible senses. His domain of control was of all things economic; grand-scale vistas of the national and international. He knew the meaning of the smallest fluctuation of the greenback; how the Yuen had been slowly growing in understated power for the last thirty years; the fragile balance between the Euro and the Pound. He quite liked the _Euro_ ; it had taken him an entire twelve seconds to come up with a name and a structure that would please everyone, especially the egalitarian French. He hadn't been quite so fortunate with _Bitcoin_ , but it was still early days. He could still change it; he could change anything.

But something had been actively working against him for a number of months now, turning the recent international fiscal scene from the anticipated quagmire into something more closely resembling the Western Front after the Somme.

Yet even this had not alarmed him overmuch; it had been known for decades that the appearance of new modern economies would be both bloody and responsible for years of painful growth as the old was succeeded by the new; as superpowers inched along the sine-wave of development.

No, it was none of this which discomforted him now, but rather something smaller, something far more local. This was too dangerous to be actioned in isolation; it would need the three of them.

He ran a hand across his face, the wrinkles of his skin pallid and unloved by sunlight. His pale-blue eyes flickered in time with the pulses of thought that flashed through his mind; he knew what he had to do next.

For the first time in over a decade, he realised he would have to call a meeting. Though it was very late, time meant little in the long game, as his pale fingers reached over to a flat black keyboard and tapped out a curt invitation.

He sighed. _Bloody meetings_. 

###

Anthea put down her new Nokia. It was sleeker and lighter than her old Blackberry, but just as demanding. For the moment all her tasks had been completed and she had a little time to follow up her own projects. There was one, in particular, that had been at the forefront of her mind for several days now ...

Slipping out of the building, she eschewed one of the big cars and instead walked down to the Embankment tube station where she quietly found herself a seat on an east-bound District Line train. She only had to travel eight stops to get where she wanted to be; Whitechapel. Crossing Whitechapel Road she ducked into a shadowed doorway and waited for several minutes to ensure there was no tail, not that she'd expected any, but it never hurt to be secure and old habits died very hard in her line of work. Almost positive that she was alone, Anthea ducked down Cavell Street and took a nice, leisurely stroll south, checking for shadows all the while. Finally satisfied, she headed left into Stepney Way and walked swiftly to a narrow side street and a particular little establishment with blacked-out windows that would have raised certain eyebrows in Whitehall with its exotic and highly _specialised_ line of wares and ... _services_.

The proprietor watched her walk in as he had several times before, he grinned. Some people really went in for this sort of thing, he knew. They got off on it. He grinned again as the stunning brunette brushed passed him without a word, pulling open a thick curtain that led to one of the back rooms where others were waiting.

She was already unbuttoning her blouse before the curtain swished closed behind her.

 

###

Cate checked her desk-diary. It was an old-fashioned ship's ledger, one of which she bought every year from Beales the Chandlers in Shaftesbury Avenue. Bound with leather and dated by the day, it was sufficiently massive for her to keep track of all her University appointments, things for the children and all the other minutia of dental appointments and shopping lists. It held photos and post-it notes, scraps of paper, business-cards and pressed flowers. It was a lovely thing and at times Cate had wrote in it with a quill because it seemed like she should. Of course, Mycroft decided to try it and February 14th was now home to some beautifully inscribed Shakespeare that made her smile every time she read it.

More recently, there had been an increasing number of book and authory-related commitments. She had tried to keep everything on her phone, really she had but the notes in her diary were a combination of alpha, numeric and visual. Quite often, Cate _drew_ her notes; visual cues being some of the easiest for her to recall. Unfortunately, her Samsung did not yet have the facility to mind-read and until it did, she'd be happier doing things the old way. It didn't matter that Mycroft smiled whenever he saw her heave it open: she'd seen his office and knew that he hung onto traditional things too.

She checked the week ahead; it was busy.

Tomorrow she was writing most of the day until six, when she'd arranged to attend a public lecture on the history of London, hoping to be able to use several historical landmarks in her fifth novel. She also hoped to persuade Mycroft to meet her after for supper when she'd continue her advocacy of the twins schooling.

Her novels one and two were still selling away nicely, especially _The English Spy_. Her third narrativic child, _The Apprentice_ , had made her something of a name in writerly-circles and the sales were still keeping her publishers happy, both here and in the States. Novel number four, a slightly darker story, had not flourished so well, except in Eastern Europe where she seemed to have attracted something of a following. There was even a small fan-club and she smiled every time she thought about having _groupies_.

And now she was working on her fifth and, thus far, her most ambitious project yet. It was to be a collection of ten shorter stories, all set in different countries and times and all connected to the one central theme. Cate was still toying with various ideas for the core linkages, but she knew it was going to be based in London and she had already decided it was to be historical in nature. The problem with that was there was so much choice; London being what it was, she could probably find enough ideas for half-a-dozen novels. Hence the lecture. She hoped it might provide a brainwave or at least, clarify her thinking.

On top of that, she was due at a photographer's studio the next morning for some marketing pictures her British publisher wanted. The studio was in Gosfield Street, not far from the old BBC building and she was due there at eleven-thirty. The photographer had sworn it would take no more than an hour, which was perfect as she wanted to take her husband to lunch and show him some brochures of schools in the London area she felt he might consider suitable for the twins. There was one particular place that sounded amazing.

Wandering into their bedroom as she was laying out a selection of clothes the photographer had asked her to bring along, Mycroft raised an eyebrow at a particularly sheer white blouse.

"Hardly the sort of thing to go on a book jacket," he looked mildly inquiring.

"I have no idea what the photographer wants me to look like," Cate added a dark scarlet silk blouse to the pile and dug out a pair of black stilettoes – the only pair of high-heels she actually owned. They made her feet ache when she wore them, but, _God_ ; they looked really good.

Mycroft's other eyebrow lifted. "What precisely is the nature of your next novel," he peered at Cate's clothing as she went to find a dark suit. "I begin to wonder."

"Dominic said he wanted to find the inner writer," her voice was slightly muffled from inside the dressing-room. "He said I need to let the creativity shine out," she added, laying down the suit and a lacy set of lingerie.

His eyes narrowing, Mycroft held up the bra between his finger and thumb. "It will not only be your creativity that shines out if you wear this," his mouth flattened. "This Dominic; not the regular photographer?"

"A nice young man the publishers are trialling," Cate brought out a long hanging bag and began arranging her chosen garments, ready ahead of time as she didn't want her writing interrupted tomorrow and she wouldn't have time after that. She turned to him and smiled. "They say he's really very good and I'm sure you'd want me to look my best," she slid both her hands into his, still smiling.

Sweeping her hands behind her back as he held them, he pulled her close to his chest. "Not sure I should leave you alone with any nice young men," he muttered, leaning down and brushing her mouth with his lips. "You have a habit of getting into the most awful scrapes with nice young men."

Cate grinned suddenly. "You cannot _possibly_ be jealous," she laughed as his kiss caught her mid-breath and her knees suddenly wanted to bend the other way. She sighed into Mycroft's embrace as the kiss deepened and lingered.

A small but hardly discreet little cough came from the open doorway followed by some mumbled conversation.

Mycroft met her eyes. "We have an audience," he sounded resigned, holding her in his arms as they both looked towards the door.

"When you have finished kissing Mummy _again_ , can we go and get one of these, please?" Blythe walked in holding up her Kindle reader and pointing a small finger at a large book.

Exhaling softly, Cate took the tablet from her daughter's hand, turning it to the light. Without a word, she handed it to Mycroft.

"The compact Oxford English Dictionary in two volumes?" Mycroft looked down at Blythe's expectant little face. She nodded. "You want a very large dictionary? There are several of them in my office, you know, and Mummy has quite a few as well," he paused, waiting.

Raising her own eyebrows in an unmistakable reflection of his own mannerism, Blythe looked around and waited until Jules stood beside her.

"We wanted one for ourselves and in our own room," she said. "And this version has a magnifying glass just like Uncle Sherlock has," the twins shared a look.

"Can we have it, please?" Julius asked. "We know it costs a lot of money, but we'll save up our pocket-money and pay for it as soon as we can," he added, confidently.

"Of course you can have it, darling," Cate handed the Kindle back. "We shall all go out to Foyles and get a set for you when I come back from having my picture taken.

"Was that why daddy was kissing you?" Jules looked interested. "To make sure you come back?"

Unable to avoid the smile that crossed her face, Cate affected an openly puzzled look. "I don't know the answer to that question," she said, turning to grin at Mycroft. "Perhaps you should ask Daddy instead."

Hearing her faint laugh as she walked back into the dressing room, Mycroft looked down to see two very attentive faces. He sighed.

 

###

She sipped slowly from her glass of _Chateau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac_ , relishing the velvet sensation of it in her mouth. _Was this the '94 or the '96_ , she wondered momentarily, until the deeper hint of blackcurrant brushed her palate and she smiled. _1996_. One of the better years.

It was late and it was dark, but she did her best thinking after midnight. Some quirk of her diurnal clock wired her brain for peak activity in the hours of the night rather than the day. Though the hour was inconceivable for most people, she was working in her office and would still be there the when the greys of dawn filtered between the drapes of heavy brocade at the several large windows.

She disliked the minimalism of the new century, preferring her environment to reflect an earlier and in many ways a more gracious, time. She appreciated the fine things that life had brought her; the lushly rich office decor, the latest and most discreet of technological assistance; the atmosphere of steady and powerful thought. Resting the fingers of her empty hand on the arm of the chair in which she sat, she registered the smooth luxury of soft leather and the satin touch of polished walnut. She smiled and sipped her wine.

She was one of three, only and always _three_. Each had their own specialised sphere of influence, although there were many points of confluence.

Hers was _law_ ; that sovereign body of all democratic social structures which entwined every unit of a society with every other unit; that brought down great houses and elevated the humble. Her landscape was that of national and international voices raised in the commonality of humankind, so that those who sought justice might have a forum; that all forms of legal inequity could be comprehended in the full light of day. She was the _Châtelaine_ _Juris_ , with keys to unlock all manner of judgement, be it criminal, civil, constitutional and even, though she rarely felt any desire for involvement, the ecclesiastical. No State, national or international legislature was mooted that she did not already know; no plebiscite, ordinance or cannon of the Western world was enacted that she did not hold it in her over-arching awareness.

She had noticed, of recent, an increase of activity in the corporate arena, especially in the City and in New York, Beijing and Brussels. Interesting that it would be _these_ four places, the location of several of the world's most complex business hubs. She had been watching, evaluating. _Waiting_.

The unusual bias of activity had not been overly alarming; she had seen many similar waves develop and wane, but this time there was a difference, some underlying motivation that, as yet, she had been unable to clearly perceive. She disliked the sensation and had been mulling the various factors around in her mind as she sipped the dark red wine and pictured the illustrious vineyards of its conception.

A soft beep from her computer lifted her awareness from the Médoc. Turning the laptop so that she could read the incoming text, she frowned slightly, looking more closely at the point of origin. Her fair eyebrows lifted as she rested back against the masculine upholstery of dark leather.

A meeting? There hadn't been a meeting of the three of them for years. They never met unless there was a problem of huge and overwhelming proportions. But there had been no sign of anything ... no great divergence or revolutionary opinions or acts. What did it mean?

Her fingers typing and sending a swift confirming response, she sat back and sipped her wine, wondering what it was that she had missed.

 

###

"So, what's next?" Blythe climbed into one of the big armchairs in their room and linked her fingers across her tummy. "They know we will look after the dictionary properly, but I think we need to do more to make them see."

Jules threw himself on his bed, resting with his hands behind his head. "They still think we're children," he said. "They don't understand."

"We _are_ children," Blythe was all logic. "And I think Mummy understands."

"Daddy doesn't want to understand, in that case," Jules frowned. "I don't think he sees how grown up we are."

"Jules, we're five," Blythe sighed theatrically. "Nobody sees how grown up we are if our feet can't touch the floor when we sit at the dining table."

"It's not fair," Jules scowled ferociously. "They should know this stuff. It's what grown-up are supposed to do," he bounced his heels on the bed crossly.

"I know one grown-up who would understand," Blythe's eyes went wide.

Suddenly becoming still, Jules looked across at his sister and grinned.

 

###

"It was what _?_ " Greg Lestrade put his mug of tea down on his desk before he spilled it. "What _exactly?_ " his face looked like his voice sounded. Sheer disbelief.

Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan shrugged, her hands in her pockets. "I know," she said. "Mad, isn't it?"

"Give us the report," Lestrade held out his hand. "This is something new," he muttered, flicking over the few pages of the autopsy report to find the toxicology data. " _Hybridised neurotoxic venom; latrotoxin of the species Latrodectus?_ " he looked up from the Latin. "What's a Latrodectus when it's at home?" he asked.

Sally was ready with her phone, turning its screen towards the DI. There was a brilliantly colourful photograph, a close-up image of one of the most poisonous things on earth. He shuddered, leaning away from the picture.

He had never really gotten on with spiders.

"Our victim was stung by a Black Widow spider?" Greg couldn't believe it. " _Here?_ In London?"

"Bitten, not stung," Sally put the phone away. "Yeah. Seems there was a small bite on the back of the man's wrist, right beside his watch, which is why everyone missed it at the scene," she said. "But according to the lab people, it's unmistakable," she shrugged again. "Our man was done in by a deadly spider."

"But they're not even from Britain, are they?" Greg Lestrade wracked his memory. "Thought they came from somewhere exotic-like; South America or somewhere like that?"

"Apparently they live anywhere that can get warm," Donovan lifted her eyebrows. "Anywhere around the Med, for instance."

"The Med? Really?" Lestrade felt a small tickle of discomfort. He'd gone on honeymoon in the Med. _Spiders_. He shuddered delicately.

"Yeah, but that's not all that's weird," Sally dropped into one of the seats in front of his desk and leaned in, her voice dropping. "This is not a straightforward spider-bite," she said. "That's why they put in that bit about it being _hybridised_ ," she added. "And there's no way anyone could bring these kind of creepy-crawlies into the country without a pile of permits and government authorisations, which means someone's been breeding deadly spiders in Britain," she paused thinking. "And not only breeding deadly spiders, but they've been breeding them _more_ deadly than usual."

"That's insane," Lestrade shook his head, a look of extreme distaste across his features. He didn't like the eight-legged things at the best of times, but now someone had gone and monkeyed about with one in order to commit murder ...

"And there was no way it could have been accidental?" he asked, just to be sure. "He couldn't have had a pet spider and taken it with him to the park, maybe to ..." it was his turn to shrug.

"What?" Donovan scoffed. "Take it for a walk?" she laughed. "Nah," she shook her head again, flicking back through the autopsy report. "The lab people say paralysis would have occurred pretty rapidly after the bite, with death following shortly thereafter," she said. "His lungs would have stopped working, you see," Sally grimaced. It would have been a terrifying way to die, especially if you knew it was happening and couldn't even shout for help.

Lestrade's desk phone rang. He picked it up and listened.

You're absolutely sure?" he asked. "Right, on our way," he added, dropping the phone back into the receiver and standing. "There's been another one. St. James's Park."

"Another death?"

"And no obvious cause of death although they've found a small bite-mark on the guy's hand. Let's go, and on the way you can start complaining."

"Complaining about what?" Donovan swung into her coat on the run.

Lestrade took a very deep breath raised his brows. "Who do we know who likes weird cases and who's probably an expert on poisonous spiders?"

Donovan's shoulders drooped.

 

###

His office was dim and shaded; smoky greens and charcoals set the tone of his daily workspace. What natural light sidled into this, his inner sanctum, was uncertain and attenuated; as if it knew it had no right to be here. He often preferred the subdued illumination of lamps; they cast intriguing shadows and his world was all about shadows.

Though the contents of his office were relatively few, each item was a classic of its kind; the Bauhaus desk, the lighting, the phones. He was particularly fond of the lamp; it had been a gift, well, it _would_ have been a gift had the owner remained alive long enough to think of it. The glossy satin of the burnished cherry wood and the clean curve of the Christian Dell desk light spoke of an innate admiration for the clean conceptual line and timeless style.

He leaned back in his effortlessly comfortable Eames chair, his fingers falling naturally into their usual pyramid as his mind rested at an habitual plateau of thought. He was very good at thinking: it was what he did best and he closed his eyes briefly, contemplating the next task.

He was one of three, only and always _three_. Each had their own specialised sphere of influence, although there were many points of confluence.

His was _defence_ ; in its every form, both active and passive, defence of everything and everyone within his domain, which was increasingly without boundary or even on the plane of the physical. Each technological progression made his task simultaneously easier and yet more complex, for while he was able to bend the digital world to his whim, so too could those who sought to attack that which he safeguarded. He watched the world in his mind, watched for the subtle feints and ruses at the gates of his protectorate, appraising the mental image in much the same way as he surveyed the crystal globe on his desk. From where would the next threat appear? From which direction? What form was most likely, most unexpected?

He shielded them all, every individual behind the strategic lines of his defence, each one unknowing that their individual and collective fate might be utterly different without his expert offices. Of course, there had been incursions; there always would be when plans were implemented by those less ... _focused_ than he. The explosions; the attacks, the threats from within. Nothing happened that he did not observe and embrace with a calculation of thought chilling in its precision.

The hour was much later than usual and he was on the point of leaving when the screen of his opened laptop flickered briefly with an incoming message; a rather _special_ message. A faint frown crossed his brow as he recognised the sender and the significance of the communiqué. _A meeting_. Something unusual was about to happen; how very intriguing. His response took mere seconds before he logged-off with the usual security protocols.

Slipping into his long coat and collecting his umbrella, Mycroft Holmes walked out into darkness.

 

###

Lestrade was standing on the fringe of another crime-scene, the second one of the day. There was a heavy sense of foreboding in his stomach as he examined the body of the man lying in the goalmouth on the pitch at Vincent Square in Westminster.

A man in his middle years; thin and long-legged; short dark hair and immaculately dressed in the finest that Savile Row had to offer. The expression on the man's face was becoming familiar: Greg had seen it twice before; once, a week ago and a second time earlier that afternoon when he and Donovan had been in St. James's Park.

This was the third death involving smartly dressed, middle-aged males whose daily routine took them to Whitehall, raising the obvious and ominous notion of a serial killer on the loose whose targets were public servants. The circumstances of all three deaths were horrendously similar; no obvious reason for death except a small red bite-mark somewhere on the hand or wrist; Lestrade knew immediately to look for this calling-card on seeing the third victim. Sure enough, just on the heel of the man's left hand ... a small, raised bite. _Latrodectus Britannia_ had struck again.

But that wasn't the truly terrifying detail that linked all these three deaths and the reason of his greatest concern as he waited for Sherlock Holmes, _wunderkind_ and arse extraordinaire, to arrive. Quiet footsteps in the dark made him straighten as the younger Holmes swung into view, grey eyes wide in the police lights.

For a second, there was silence at Sherlock absorbed every physical detail of the corpse before him. His expression was a little distracted as he met Lestrade's eyes.

"Yes, Inspector, you are quite correct," he murmured.

"Correct in what?" Greg wondered what part of the conversation he'd missed.

"You are quite correct in the belief that someone is out to kill my brother."


	2. Chapter 2

_A Brotherly Conversation – Anthea's Little Adventure – Uncle Sherlock – The Phone Call – Nigel Vaughn-Williams – A Preference for Scorpions – The Coherence of a Theory._

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It was at breakfast when Sherlock appeared at the townhouse, timing his arrival so that the meal would have been done with, but Mycroft would not have yet departed for Whitehall. The twins exchanged glances with each other, greeting their uncle with understated enthusiasm, and extracting a promise that Sherlock would speak with them before he left. In what had become a morning routine, they then turned to their father who handed over his newspaper without a word. Jules took it, murmuring thanks, and the two scampered into the front lounge without a backward glance.

Sherlock's raised eyebrow made Mycroft shake his head as the shadow of a smile curved his mouth. "They have competitions now to find words the other one doesn't know," his smile broadened. "Blythe has become so skilful at extemporising that I doubt Jules has realised his sister is cheating," he paused. "There will be a great gnashing of teeth when he discovers what she's been doing."

"And will he find out?" despite himself, Sherlock felt his mood oddly lightened at the thought of Mycroft's children behaving underhandedly.

"He may already know and be in the process of plotting her downfall," Mycroft opened his hands wide. "The sacrifice of a morning paper is the least of my problems," he sighed, but not unhappily.

After greeting their early visitor, Cate had retired to her office in the rear lounge to begin writing, leaving the brothers in peace; Sherlock had taken care to ensure there would be no other participant in the ensuing conversation and had refused even tea, in order that she leave them quickly. It was the refusal of tea that signalled his visit was a matter of import and Mycroft led the way to his office.

Waiting until the last door closed between them and the rest of the family, Sherlock's impatience was becoming obvious.

Sitting behind his desk, Mycroft fixed a calm gaze on his brother's face and blinked slowly. "Tell me," he said.

"I have reason to believe your life may be at risk," Sherlock's voice was low but certain.

"My life is frequently at risk," Mycroft was diffident. "It's why I have a permanent security team."

"A week ago a man was found dead in Regent's Park," Sherlock leaned forward in his seat resting his forearms on his knees. "He was sitting on a park bench screened by shrubbery and died relatively swiftly and silently in the middle of dozens of passers-by."

"I was aware of the death, Sherlock," Mycroft crossed his legs. "But I am still waiting for you to connect it to your visit this morning, though I cherish the event. Do get on."

"The dead man was Lionel Hammond, aged fifty-one and a senior civil servant working out of the Ministry of Defence in Spring Gardens," Sherlock continued his explanation.

Mycroft tilted his head slightly and closed his eyes. "This is not news, Sherlock."

"Hammond was wearing a dark three-piece suit purchased at Gieves and Hawkes; he was something of a well-known figure in the Service and was a man of regular habits and behaviour."

"Really, if you have only come here this morning to advise me that Her Majesty's Civil Service has unfortunately lost one of its senior and better-dressed administrative personnel, I agree, it's a very sorry tale, but I am yet to understand the reason for your appearance at such an hour," the elder Holmes sounded fractionally impatient himself.

"Mycroft, the man looked almost exactly like you," Sherlock sat back, a look of irritation crossing his face. "Did you know that?" he asked. "Did you know that this dead Whitehall flunky was possessed of features sufficiently similar to yours that he could have been your understudy," he paused, thinking. "Was he?"

"An understudy?" Mycroft shook his head. "We haven't gone in for that sort of thing since Churchill's time," he smiled mildly. "It was probably one of those... what do they call them?" Mycroft looked as if he were pondering the word. "Ah _yes_ ," he smiled again. " _Coincidences_ ," he added. "It must have been one of those," he added. "However, since no coincidence, no matter how fantastic, would have brought you here at breakfast, I find myself still waiting for an explanation of your presence," Mycroft's smile was sweetness itself.

"There have been another two deaths," Sherlock watched his brother's eyes for a reaction; any reaction. There was an almost indiscernible stilling of Mycroft's facial muscles.

"When?"

"Late yesterday. The first was discovered while the body was still warm, yesterday afternoon in St. James's Park, and the second late last night at Vincent Square."

"Cause of death?"

"Identical in all three cases," Sherlock sat back and crossed his legs, mirroring his brother. "Latrotoxin."

"Spider bite?" Mycroft's eyebrows lifted fractionally. "In London? How peculiar."

"More curious than you know," Sherlock leaned forward again. "On two counts. Firstly, the venom was hybridised."

"Really? With what?"

"Atraxotoxin."

"Nasty," Mycroft curled his upper lip in distaste. "Someone's being very naughty," he said. "Does Scotland Yard have any idea?"

"Scotland Yard rarely have any ideas, so I won't waste your time with their _cris de coeur_ ," Sherlock's lightning-fast smile appeared and vanished.

"You mentioned two counts?" Mycroft checked his Hunter. The PM had indicated he would appreciate a discussion some time before eleven.

Nodding, Sherlock stared at his brother's hand holding the heavy silver watch. "All three men looked like you," he said. "Not just vaguely similar, but so close to you in most general aspects and dress that anyone who knew you in a passing sense might not be able to differentiate between these men and you," Sherlock paused again, even more thoughtfully. " _Sure_ they're not your understudies?"

"Positive," Mycroft rested his clasped hands beneath his chin and frowned.

"So who's out to get you?" Sherlock leaned back in his chair and likewise clasped his fingers in his lap.

"More than usual, you mean?" Mycroft sighed. "No new players that I'm aware of," he murmured, relaxing and sitting back in his chair. "I've no idea," he added. "Unless it's an old adversary returned from the great beyond."

"You still have old _living_ adversaries?"

"One or two," Mycroft smiled slowly. "I keep them around for the occasional target-practice."

"One of them may be attempting to return the favour," Sherlock sounded philosophical. "In a most unpleasant way."

"Are you going to be assisting the police in their investigations?"

"Yes. John's gone to speak to an Arachnologist at the London Zoo."

"One of the world's largest scientific collection of spiders," Mycroft nodded thoughtfully. "And in Regent's Park."

"I doubt any connection between that fact and the first or subsequent deaths would be quite so obvious, given that we are dealing with the design of a serial killer, probably male, who works remotely through third parties in both the development and the implementation of the crime; who clearly knows of you, may even be known _by_ you, and yet is determined not to become known _to_ you as the instigator of these activities," Sherlock took a breath. "I am moving towards the conviction that these deaths are either in error or are a smokescreen," he said. "The man behind the crimes, whoever he is – balance of probability argues it's a man, no woman could bear the embarrassment of letting her agents pick the wrong face three times, or would kill three men to make a point; a woman would be far more direct – has embarked upon a definitive search and destroy where you are concerned," he added. "Either error or a smokescreen, but both suggests someone is working their way along a list of potential victims. How long, therefore, before his hired assassins find the real Mycroft Holmes? We are dealing with a very clever person," Sherlock pursed his lips, pondering. "Who, equally clearly, is after you."

"I'm hardly an intellectual slouch," Mycroft sniffed. "And forewarned _is_ forearmed. I shall have words with my people."

"All three bodies were found in open spaces, municipal parks and the like," Sherlock frowned. "So that the weapon would not be discovered."

"Weapon?"

"A Black Widow spider, a _weaponised_ Black Widow spider," the younger Holmes stared out of the several large windows facing onto the now-gated Grosvenor Square end of Culross Street. He wondered how much effort it had taken Mycroft to orchestrate that little coup. It was usually quiet around here, a world away from death and horror. For the sake of Cate and the twins, he was glad. This reminded him.

"I'll keep you informed," he said, standing. "In the meantime, I suggest the avoidance of London's delightful public gardens until further notice," he said.

"Duly noted," Mycroft nodded, lifting his phone and calling for the Jaguar. "Can I drop you anywhere?"

"Thank you, no," Sherlock opened the door. "I am summoned to an audience with the Extemporist and Teeth-Gnasher."

"Ah," Mycroft smiled brightly as he turned toward the rear lounge to confirm Cate's supper arrangements. "Best of luck."

###

It had been a longer night than she'd expected, but it had been amazingly successful; she had seen things, with her own eyes, that shouldn't have been possible. But they had happened and it was exciting and now she was half-asleep in the office with a man who missed nothing.

"Thank you," Mycroft's eyes flickered over her, sipping the tea she brought as she sank down into the visitor's chair, drinking from her own cup. He paused, considering his words.

"You know," he said delicately. "It is quite often the case that that which looks exciting and unusual on the surface is frequently prosaic and venal beneath," he paused again. "I might suggest, were I in any position to suggest anything, that you proceed in your little adventure with some caution," he looked up and met her dark eyes. "It is so hard to find good staff these days."

She froze momentarily. He knew?How did he know? _How could he possibly know?_

"Thank you, sir," Anthea smiled and finished her tea. "I shall bear that in mind," she said, pulling down the sleeve of her blouse over the tiny red mark on her inner wrist. _There was no way he could know_.

###

Sherlock was _enroute_ to Baker Street, most of his mind running down ideas and hypothesising avenues of logical thought. By far the larger portion of his brain was already burrowing deep into the deducible psyche of the presumed and shadowy figure that lurked behind the recent attempts on his brother's life.

There was a smaller part of his genius intellect however, that was walking down quite a different pathway; the twins had asked him for help.

Upon completing the conversation with his brother, Sherlock left Mycroft's office and entered the much larger space of the townhouse's front lounge, an elongated room with two large windows at the front, the mirror image of those in Mycroft's office directly across the hall. Aside from the several long, modern sofas, chairs and occasional furniture arranged pleasingly around the space, there was still sufficient room to allow a fairly large open area in the centre of the room. This space was currently occupied.

Hearing the lounge door open, Blythe rolled away from the newspaper laid out in the middle of the room and sat up on her heels, waiting for her uncle to come in and listen to their problem. Sherlock stood just inside the door, closing it softly behind him as he took in the two small children now both giving him an unnerving level of attention.

They stared without blinking.

"You wanted to speak to me," he said, looking at them sideways. "Why?"

"Come and sit down, Uncle Sherlock," Jules also sat up, his bright hazel eyes waiting until the tall man in the dark suit came closer.

Selecting a chair off to one side of the room, Sherlock sat, waiting. Ever since the twins had been infants, they seemed to have an unnatural interest in him and he was still, at times, unsure why, or how long it might continue.

"Over here, please," Blythe patted the rug beside her.

"Grown-ups don't usually sit on the floor, you realise," he muttered, sinking down beside them, crossing his legs. "We like to pretend to be too old for such things."

"There's more room down here to practice swimming," Jules flung himself down and demonstrated a rather stylish breast-stroke.

"An argument I shall be sure to use the next time I am tasked for floor-sitting," Sherlock linked his fingers. "Now what was it you wanted to ask me?"

"How do you know we want to ask you anything?" Blythe looked at her uncle through narrowed eyes.

Narrowing his own eyes in response, Sherlock nodded. "Normally when I come here, you and Jules offer some manner of greeting, but this morning, both of you remained silent on the proviso I spoke with you prior to leaving. This can only mean that you have a reason to speak to me other than as a greeting. Since neither of you were expecting me to bring you anything or had arranged to give me anything, then the likelihood of a gift is out; that you are too young to require a loan, and are both unlikely as yet to be involved in a life of crime, then you have either witnessed an event you wanted to tell me about; you have a complaint to offer, or you wanted to ask me something. Since your father would have known of any disturbing event involving either of you, and due to the fact that he is embarrassingly fond of you both, would have informed me several minutes ago, thus it's not news of an event you wish to share with me. Neither of you have ever been the slightest bit reticent in the past about complaining vociferously, at the least provocation, about the smallest offensive detail, then it seems odd you would now require a private chat to complain about anything. Therefore, if it's not a greeting, a gift, the need of money, assistance with the police, something you saw, a complaint, then there remains only one alternative, _ergo_ , you want to ask me something," he said. "What is it?"

Slitting her eyes to the point where vision must have been compromised, Blythe tightened her mouth. "We might have asked you to come and tell us a story, or to help us get a big book down from a high shelf or show us how to open the locked drawer in the sideboard that we lost the key for," she paused, the light of challenge in her eyes.

Jules took over. "Or we could have asked you in so we could show you the present we've got for Uncle John's birthday, or to watch me being a brilliant swimmer, or to read us from the book that mummy doesn't want us to read from yet."

"Which book?" Sherlock frowned as two small index-fingers immediately shot up to the high mantelpiece whereon rested a text emblazoned with the name of D.H. Lawrence. "John has a birthday?"

"Next Tuesday and we got him a big woolly scarf for winter and it's even nicer than yours," Jules nodded.

"But since it's obviously none of those things, I repeat my original question, what _do_ you want?" Sherlock was entirely solemn.

After sharing a glance with each other, the twins met his gaze.

"We need a grown-up," Blythe folded her arms. " _Uncle_ Sherlock," she added, pointedly.

"You have two parents," Sherlock folded his own arms. "I believe that would qualify either of them for the task."

"We want a grown-up who is _not_ mummy or daddy," Jules clarified. "So people will know what we are saying is serious because they won't listen to us otherwise," he added in explanation.

"What people?" Sherlock narrowed his eyes again, leaning closer.

Blythe told him.

###

Cate's Samsung rang just as she was battling with an obstructive sentence; she'd rewritten the damn thing four times and it still didn't flow. The last thing she wanted now was to break her train of thought. She made a mental note to turn her phone off after the call.

"Good morning, Professor Adin-Holmes," the voice was male and mellifluous. "I hope I'm not disturbing you?"

"Well, I am right in the middle of something, actually," she hoped the call would be brief. "Who is this?"

"Only an admirer of your productions," the voice was strangely even, almost mechanical in its cadence. " _All_ your productions," the voice continued. "Your books, your academic works, your life, your _children_ ..."

A chilling surge wrapped her from head to foot as her stomach lurched. She stood, abruptly. "Who _is_ this?" she demanded her voice suddenly breathless. "How did you get this number?"

"Best wishes for the new book, Professor Holmes," the voice remained unnaturally calm. "I'm sure we'll speak again. Until then ... _Goodbye_."

The connection fell silent as Cate held the phone to her ear with a clenched hand. Though nothing overtly threatening had been said, she felt as though she'd been assaulted. Leaving her desk, she ran down the hallway into the front lounge and flung open the door, only to see the twins both lying on the floor, their hands and faces liberally smeared with newsprint . They looked at her in surprise while her stomach shuddered with relief as she went to peer out of the window in case there was an unknown car, or there was anyone suspicious lurking around outside the house.

Of course, there wasn't, and Cate's heart rate started to descend. She hadn't felt this level of apprehension for a long time, and she was quite sure she didn't want to feel it again.

Smiling at the children who immediately went back to their reading, after locking the front door, Cate walked back to her office and sat, he knees suddenly weak.

There was only one thing she could do now; she rang Mycroft.

###

"This is an utter load of _bollocks_ ," the expression on Lestrade's face was little short of dire. "No _way_ are you taking this from Serious Crimes," he protested. "Since when have MI5 _ever_ given a flying fuck about a couple of corpses in a London park?" Greg was working himself up into a right paddy.

After an inexplicable power-cut during the night causing his clock-radio to expire, he had arrived at his office late that morning hoping to still have time to make a dent in the paperwork threatening to topple out of his in-box. He fancied he might be able to get a good couple of hours work in before the criminal class awoke and began a new day of larceny and reckless endangerment.

It was only when he swung through the door that he found a grey-suited stranger already sitting in front of his desk under the eagle-eye of an arm-folded and somewhat irritated Sally Donovan. His Copper's eye told his brain _smartarse_ as the stranger was in the process of reading the papers piled on the desk. Upside _down_ papers. Lestrade hated people who did that, especially people who had plonked themselves down in somebody's private office when said body was not yet present.

"He came in, flashed his ID and wouldn't say anything until you got here," Donovan was clearly unimpressed.

Grey-suited smartarse smiled; a particularly smarmy kind of smile, Greg felt his eyes narrow of their own volition. "Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my office?" he asked. "My _private_ office?" he took a breath. "What ID?"

"Good morning, Detective-Inspector Lestrade," the man rose and offered his hand – which, after a momentary desire to either ignore, or grab and twist up behind the man's back until he confessed something – Greg shook.

"My name is Vaughn-Williams," grey-suit said. "Nigel Vaughn-Williams and I've brought you a little bit of good news," he said, smiling even more repulsively than before.

"Really?" Lestrade sat heavily in his chair on the far side of the desk, unconvinced that anything good was likely to eventuate from this conversation, but still; you never knew. "What?"

"I come to relieve you and your sadly overworked team of a small amount of drudgery," Vaughn-Williams paused, his smile increasing in both wattage and unpleasantness. "The recent spate of unexplained deaths in London parks," he paused again. "Forget them; they are unimportant; my people are dealing with the matter now."

"And exactly who _are_ your people?" Greg felt his chest tighten with genuine dislike for the man sitting in front of him. Maybe he should have his unwelcome visitor shown some good old Scotland Yard hospitality in an interview room for a few hours; perhaps even an intimate tour of the holding cells down in the basement?

Leaning forward, Vaughn-Williams slid an ID card across the desk between two stacks of expense requests.

 _Nigel Vaughn-Williams, Senior Information Officer, Military Intelligence_.

"Senior Information Officer?" Lestrade raised his eyebrows. "You a spook?"

Vaughn-William made a _moue_ of distaste. "We prefer _Operative_ ," his smile flattened. "The other is so ... American."

"So what does a spook want with some odd spider-murders in London?" the Copper inside him was flailing his arms, jumping up and down trying to catch his attention. "If the deaths are so unimportant, why does MI5 want to take them away from the police? And if, as I am increasingly beginning to suspect, they are not unimportant at all, then what is the connection between these three dead men and Britain's domestic intelligence service?" Greg grinned suddenly as he saw Vaughn-William begin to frown.

However, his grin faded quickly as the MI5 operative recovered, a congenial expression returning.

"It makes no matter whatever you might or might not suspect," the MI5 man stated lightly. "You are to drop the case and we will take it from here."

"I'm not taking this lying down," Greg poked a stack of weekly statistical reports with an angry finger. "I'll lodge a complaint."

"With whom?" Nigel Vaughn-Williams, MI5 operative and all-round smug bastard, smiled amiably once more. "This has come from the top, dear boy; I'm merely delivering the message as a courtesy to our cousins in blue."

Sally Donovan was almost as incensed as her boss. "You can take your 'dear boy' and shove it right up ..."

"Yes, alright, _Sergeant_ ," Lestrade sucked down a hard breath as he calmed the hot churn of aggravation. He had a fairly good idea of who might be sitting at the top of this particular pyramid. "We'll follow this up in a sensible, considered and sensitive manner, a manner befitting the Metropolitan Police," he stood, smiling. It was an unpleasant little smile. "We're going to find out who, specifically, is responsible for this, and then, when we find out it's Mycroft Holmes, I'll ask him what the hell he thinks he's playing at."

So saying, Greg picked up his office phone and rang a number he'd only had to ring twice before, waiting for the man who had told MI5 to track down the murderer of tall, dark-haired Civil Servants.

###

John tapped an index finger softly against the thickened glass of the display tank, only to lean back a little as a large black tarantula reared up on its hind legs and waved a set of ferocious fangs in a vaguely threatening manner.

"Please don't upset them," the woman in a white lab coat with glasses pushed up onto the top of her head stood beside him and scowled. "They're very sensitive to noise and movement," she added.

"Spiders?" John smiled at her. "Great big hairy _sensitive_ spiders?"

"It's how they locate and track their prey," the woman made a quiet clucking-sound as the spider relaxed back down onto all eights. "Helen Madly," she said, offering John her hand. "Doctor Helen Madly."

At John's increased grin, she rolled her eyes and looked weary. " _Yes_ ," she said gustily. "The _mad_ doctor; say it now and get it off your chest."

" _Sorry_ ," he said, clamping down on the smile. "You have to be really fed-up with that."

"You have no idea," Doctor Madly folded her arms. "I'm the senior Arachnologist at Regent's Park Zoo," she said. "Some man from the police rang and said there would be a detective coming with questions about current and ongoing arachnid experimentation, especially genetic engineering. Is that you?"

Standing in one of the large and well-equipped laboratories house in buildings immediately adjacent to the London Zoo, John had the good grace to shrug. "I only work _with_ the police," he said. "I'm not actually a detective; more of a consultant, really."

"Okay, _consultant_ ," Madly paused, waiting. "Fire away."

"Right, then," John pulled a small notebook from his pocket, fairly certain this conversation would involve words he'd need to be able to pronounce later. "What can you tell me about Black Widows?" he said. "Got any of them here?" he looked around, curiously.

" _T_ _heridiidae_ _latrodectus_ _?_ " the woman brightened. "Lovely things," she said, beckoning John over towards a long glass tank filled with gravel and grass and bits of twigs and small, flat stones.

As John leaned in closer to get a better look, he saw that it was also filled with a significant number of elegantly spindly black hour-glass shaped spiders, their shiny globular bodies hanging from fine webs scattered throughout the tank. He'd never seen a glass container filled with death before; it gave him a queer sensation.

"They're sexual cannibals, you know," Helen Madly lifted her eyebrows, smiling. "The females are about three times more deadly than the males and if their boyfriends can't escape immediately after mating, they often become an after-sex snack," she smiled again, happy in the knowledge. "The tensile strength of the Widow's silk is comparable to that of steel wire of the same thickness, although since the steel is more than six times as dense, then the silk is actually more than six times as strong," she added. " _Brilliant_ , aren't they?"

"Brilliant," John felt his skin start to itch. It wasn't that he was frightened by the spiders as such, but they made him want to scratch for some reason. He'd take scorpions and the occasional Pit Viper over the eight-legged beasties any day. "How deadly are they?" he asked, bending down and watching one large specimen constructing a white silk case.

"The bite of the female would make you quite unwell," Madly looked at her visitor assessingly. "But probably wouldn't kill you unless you had a severe pre-existing and potentially fatal condition such as a heart problem," the Arachnologist tilted her head. "It could well be fatal to children and the elderly; anyone insufficiently strong to battle the toxin in their bloodstream. Animals, such as dogs and cats, monkeys, other small mammals, of course, would very likely die."

"What about a normally healthy middle-aged man, fairly fit and active, with no pre-existent medical condition," John asked. "Not dead?"

"Almost certainly not dead," Helen Madly shook her head. "Unwell, yes, absolutely, but not dead."

"What if the Black Widow venom had been combined with ..." he looked down at the notebook. "Atraxotoxin?"

The scientist looked horrified. "Who on earth would want to combine two of the world's deadliest organic toxins?" she asked, baffled. "Atraxotoxin comes from _Atrax robustus_ , the Australian Funnel-Web spider, and again, the female is usually the more venomous because of her larger size," Madly still looked discomforted. "But for someone to _deliberately_ admix these two venoms ..."

"We don't think it was the venom they mixed, actually," John grimaced. "There have been a series of deaths recently, each victim with a spider-bite on their hand, and an autopsy finding of both latrotoxin _and_ atraxotoxin in the bloodstream. Any thoughts on how this might have happened, Doctor Madly?"

"Only one bite?" the scientist looked suspicious. "Quite sure there was only the one bite?"

"I've seen the autopsy report myself and I'm a qualified doctor, so ..., yeah; a single bite."

"How big was the bite wound?" Madly demanded. "About the size of a fifty-pence coin or more like the size of a shirt-button?"

"All three bites were of the smaller variety," John recalled the autopsy findings. The wounds had been relatively tiny.

"Then unless the Atraxotoxin was administered in some other form, or this is some sort of ghastly trick, someone has done the unthinkable, Doctor," Helen Madly was genuinely shocked. "Someone has genetically manipulated a Black Widow to develop venom glands capable of producing of both latrotoxin _and_ atraxotoxin," she said, shaking her head at the idea of it. "The resultant mutation, assuming it could be done and result in a living spider, would be _incredibly_ dangerous, easily able to envenom and kill an adult male human in good health."

"Do you know of any labs in Britain who might be playing around with this sort of thing?" John wondered if she knew, would she tell?

"No serious scientist would consider any such action for a moment," Madly shivered. "That sort of thing is the stuff of horror-fiction, not science."

"So not something you'd be into here, then?" John wanted to be sure.

The Arachnologist gave John a look that even Sherlock couldn't mistake for anything except outright affront. "No, it _isn't_ ," she announced in a flat voice.

"Looks like someone's gone and done it though," John made a face. "No inkling who might be into this kind of work?"

Madly shrugged. "A private lab, perhaps?" she asked, her expression faintly revolted. "Maybe something gruesome cooked up by the biological weapons school of thought?" she shook her head again. "Frankly, I'd rather not think about it; it gives me the willies."

Putting his shoulders back, John looked at the scientist's expression. If she was lying, then she was better at it than his flatmate. "As a doctor of the _human_ variety," he smiled. "I recommend a nice cup of tea to remove the sensation. Where's the nearest café?"

###

Mycroft Holmes had just finished explaining to the PM why they could not open the vast network of old and abandoned tunnels and secret passageways still extant beneath the larger part of Whitehall and the City of London.

"Prime Minister, the issue of physical presence is not the key problem here," Mycroft's voice was at its most dulcet, "but rather one of security, both of the present and the future. It is not a matter of ingress that concerns me, but of _egress_."

"Allowing tourists into the tunnels is _still_ a security issue?" the PM's voice was uncertain, as if he'd missed something but wasn't sure quite what. "Even with all the checks and limited numbers and vetted tour guides? Even with all these things, you still think it's a bad idea?"

"Sir, how many entrances do you think there are into the subterranean passages?" Mycroft sighed. He disliked the effort it took to persuade any politician against the merits of giving the public everything they wanted, especially when it was a popularist provision and the recipients were all registered voters.

There was something of a pause as the PM considered the question. "Not really clear on that number," he said. "Several dozen, probably."

"There are currently one hundred and fifty-six viable entrances to the tunnels on the north side of the river alone," Mycroft allowed his tone to harden slightly. "Not counting the tunnels that travel beneath the Thames."

"So many?" the PM was clearly surprised.

"Each tunnel has both an entrance _and_ an exit, Prime Minister," the elder Holmes sighed inwardly. "A large number of these exist in places neither of us would want members of the public to access."

"Such as where?" the PM was not giving up such a good idea without a fight.

"Such as in both Houses of Parliament, the London Tower, Charing Cross Station, several in the Temple area and in Downing Street."

"There's an entrance in Downing Street?" Great Britain's most senior minister sounded appalled.

"It's also an _exit_ , Prime Minister," Mycroft smiled in the silence of his office. "Accessible to anyone loose in the tunnels ... who knows _what_ might come popping out of a cupboard at Number Ten?"

"Your point is made, Holmes," the PM's voice lost its previous enthusiasm. "Yet it seemed such an excellent idea when I heard of it."

"Might I inquire from whom the idea derived?" Mycroft felt it would be judicious to have a little chat with which ever Staffer had come up with such an ill-considered notion.

There was another pause. "Do you know, I can't actually remember," the PM sounded genuinely vague. "Someone mentioned they'd had a discussion with someone who knew about the passageways and thought how marvellous it would be for everyone to see more of London's heritage ... haven't got a clue who it was, though."

"It's of no matter," Mycroft felt his instincts prickle. _Something was not right_. "But should the suggestion reappear, I'd be most interested in meeting its originator."

Replacing the phone on his desk, Mycroft sat back in his chair, fingers steepled and an expression of intense deliberation on his face. The matter of opening the tunnels was innocuous enough, albeit thoughtless. That this was the latest piece of imprudence to have taken his attention in the last several days gave him pause for thought. There had been the affair of the Turkish diplomats meeting in the Palace of Westminster, requiring a massive security exercise and support; the question of the forged resume of the footman on the Queen's household, necessitating a complete review of all staff _bona fides_ as well as an extensive re-evaluation of the entire royal employees recruitment policy. There had also been the small problem of the Common's Chief Whip's inexplicable _liaison_ with the Ukrainian model; an indiscreet bit of nonsense that neither the man, happily-married, with three teenaged children, nor the woman herself, a reasonably successful mannequin for the Eastern European shoe industry, had any real understanding. It had been one of those things.

Mycroft frowned. He disliked such abstraction in his responsibilities. If he was a suspicious man, he might even imagine these difficulties had been manufactured to distract him. _From what?_

His mobile phone rang. _Lestrade_. With a short breath, he took the call. "Inspector? How pleasant to hear from you again. Is this about my brother?"

"No, Mycroft, it's about you getting your lapdogs at MI5 to try and take the Park murders away from my Division," the Londoner's voice was acrid with frustration. "Why on earth did you imagine that Scotland Yard could not do its job properly in this instance beats me," he added. "I always knew you could be a high-handed sod when the mood took you, but to simply have someone appear and tell me the entire thing's a _fait accompli_ is neither encouraging of inter-service co-operation nor entirely ethical," Lestrade paused for breath.

Taking advantage of a momentary break in Lestrade's tirade, Mycroft's voice was oddly quiet. "Was my name specifically mentioned by whichever lapdog gave you the message?"

"No, it wasn't," Greg Lestrade was honest enough to admit it. "But who other than you would have either the interest or the clout to pull something like this off?" he demanded. "And given the nature of the crime, who else would have a greater desire to see the case solved and closed?"

"It was not I who gave the instruction to intervene, Inspector," Mycroft's instincts, previously prickling, were now fully roused and looking around for trouble. "I will make inquiries," he added, ending the call.

Almost immediately he put the Nokia down onto his desk, it rang again. With a less discreet sigh, he picked it up, but relaxed when he saw it was Cate. Wondering if she'd changed her plans for the evening, he opened the call.

"Hello, Darling," he smiled the words. "Everything is well?"

"No, Mycroft; everything is _not_ well," her words was tense and troubled.

The pitch of her voice was sufficient in itself to have him sitting upright, everything now at high alert. "What is it?" he maintained an even tone.

"I've just had a frightening phone call from a complete stranger who seems to have all sorts of information about me and my work and the children. He didn't say anything specifically threatening, but it was the way he spoke that makes me feel awful, Mycroft, really uncomfortable." In a few seconds, she relayed the contents of the conversation.

"You and the children are safe?" Mycroft rose to his feet, pressing an intercom key on the desk phone that took him directly to the CCTV monitoring centre. He could have an emergency response team there in less than five minutes if the situation warranted it, but in the meantime, he wanted to _see_. "There is no attack?"

"No, no attack, my love," he could hear Cate's suppressed concern. "The twins are fine and there's no unusual activity outside in the road, but Mycroft, who would say such things to me? Why?"

"I don't know, my darling, but stay exactly where you are an I'll have my people contain the area until I can be sure our security has not been breached, and I'll also have your incoming calls monitored if you don't mind, just to be safe."

"Anything to stop another call like that," Cate was beginning to relax; he could hear it in her tone. "I'll cancel the lecture tonight and stay here with the children."

"Don't cancel, my love," Mycroft had her call on speaker and was already sending out several rapid directions by email to various key personnel. "Carry on exactly as normal with Nora and the twins; I have additional security at the house already and for you when you leave; the entire street will be monitored as well as our external communications for a while. Everything will be fine, I promise."

When Cate was relaxed enough to end the call, Mycroft laid the slim black phone on his desk and stared at it, his thoughts racing, testing swathes of scenarios and situational permutations.

A theory began to cohere in his mind. It was bizarre, but yet ... He wouldn't have to wait long to see if his reasoning was correct.

Almost as if on-cue, all hell broke loose as every alarm and alert siren in the building went off simultaneously, the resultant cacophony enough to make him wince in discomfort and cover his ears with his hands.

His office door opened as Anthea poked her head around the jamb.

"Sorry to disturb," she smiled faintly. "But they've just found bomb in the mail-room with your name on it."


	3. Chapter 3

_Mycroft Multitasks – An Eye on Whitehall – More Deadly Than the Male – A Précis of Lawrence – Anthea Begins – A Meeting of the Three._

#

#

With her own hands now covering her ears, Anthea attempted to shout over the unremitting and mind-numbing sound. "We have to _leave_ , sir!" she cried, standing in the open doorway. "This is a Level One Emergency and in a few minutes the entire building will be locked down. We have to go _now_."

Executing an emergency shutdown of all his currently opened files and records, Mycroft was able to leave his desk knowing that, whatever else happened, all his classified documents were safe and untouchable until he, and only he, re-initialised their accessibility from one of several other secure authorisation points, Culross Street being one.

The noise blared even louder in the heavily carpeted hallway and he winced afresh as the pulsating sound drove a spike of pain between his eyes. So intense was the discomfort that it made him want to leave it far behind as soon as possible ... an effective motivator of evacuation, in that case.

Making his way to their primary clearing zone, Mycroft noted that his Jaguar was already waiting to whisk him and his Assistant to safety. "Home," he announced, turning to Anthea. "I shall continue working at my private desk until this inconvenience has been resolved," he said. "I have already had cause to upgrade my domestic security today; there's most certainly a link between the two events – even Cate has been targeted. Please keep me informed of the condition here – it's critical we find out how an explosive device managed to breach every safety wall; where did it come from and who is responsible," he bounced a closed fist slowly off the cushioned seat between them. "There is no logical way for such an event to happen, and yet it has," he bit his bottom lip. "The entire building is unsafe for any of our activities until we know how this thing managed to bypass our safeguards."

"And the two meetings you were chairing this afternoon, sir?" Anthea was already on her phone, setting several activities in train. "Want me to postpone either or both?"

"Only the two o'clock one," he checked his Hunter; it was well after one-thirty. "Doubt I can reach my desk in a timely manner given the lunchtime traffic," he stared broodily out of the window. "Send my apologies and reschedule, if you would."

"You'll be reachable at home until further notice?" her nimble fingers tap-tapped through yet another communique.

He nodded, silently, his mind already probing the schematics of safety protocols he himself had instituted when his department repositioned itself to be more fully within the auspices of the Department of Defence, moving into larger and somewhat grander accommodation on the architectural _segue_ between the MoD and Admiralty House. It did not appear as a separate building on any map or even by the most careful satellite scrutiny – one of the reasons he'd selected this particular new location. From the outside, no one would ever be able to identify any individual site. It had other benefits too; an immediacy of communication that far surpassed the old site – he was quite literally in the centre of the British defence web here – but this new setting was already proving its value in terms of _informal_ information supply. The amount of data his people had been able to absorb from off the record sources was an unanticipated boon; apparently, the main refectory was proving something of a gold mine. He would have to do something about such laxity.

As the car pulled to the kerb outside the townhouse, he scanned the street in both directions, looking for the additional security he'd directed here earlier. The blue Mazda was one of theirs ... and the newish mini; ideal for a swift getaway on the London streets. He nodded to himself. Looking back over his shoulder as he left the Jaguar, he met his assistant's questioning gaze. "Find out who's running Nigel Vaughn-Williams at MI5," he said. "Someone is interfering with police operations," he added. "And since it isn't me, I'm rather curious."

He smiled a little as he unlocked the front door; Cate wouldn't be expecting him at this time. They might have some lunch, or at least tea. Leaving his things by the entrance, he walked towards the slightly open door of the rear lounge, only to freeze at the unmistakable sound of steel on steel.

"There's no way you can keep me here like this," Cate's words, distinct in the silence of the house, made his heart thunder _. She was being held! The earlier phone call had indeed been a warning! Someone was already in the house, threatening his family_... in a second, he was at the door and inside, ready to change the balance of the situation in any way he could.

But the room was empty; other than Cate, there was nobody; there was no threat. He felt himself sag in relief, as she turned to stare at him, curious about the expression of shock that must surely be on his face.

"Hello, Darling," she stepped towards him, a pair of steel handcuffs clinking in her fingers. "Are you okay? You seem upset."

His heart resuming its more normal cadence, he swallowed in an oddly dry throat and smiled. "I thought you were in trouble again," his fingers stroked through her hair. "Are you quite sure you're alright ... after that phone call?"

She looked fatalistic. "It was just a phone call," Cate shrugged. "There's not much point getting worked up over a strange call, especially when I'm married to one of the most security-conscious men in the world." She held up the handcuffs. "I've been going through a scene in the book," she said. "I was trying to work out if anyone could free themselves from handcuffs while keeping their abductors talking," she frowned. "I'm not sure it's possible, though. Too much simultaneous thinking."

Mycroft took the light police-issue 'cuffs, giving them a perfunctory once-over. They belonged to Sherlock. "It could be done," he said, a little impulsive with relief. "It's not a terribly difficult thing."

"You could extract yourself from a pair of handcuffs while keeping up a conversation with someone watching you?" she asked. "I expect Sherlock could do it, but that's the kind of mad thing he goes in for – not everyone can do something like that."

Holding the handcuffs up for a closer inspection, Mycroft verified they were an older pair of Hiatts, unmodified by his brother, still with the connecting chain rather than the rigid central grip. These were the easiest restraints to break out of ... if you had the knack of it.

"It can be done," he repeated, dangling them on an index finger as he held them out to her.

"Show me," Cate's eyes opened wide. "Oh _please_ , Mycroft," she almost begged. "Please show me how it's done," she said. "Sherlock gave me the key," she added, plucking a tiny steel shard from her desk. "Just in case."

It was probably not the wisest of notions, but would only take a moment and it wasn't such a big thing. "Where are the children?" he didn't particularly want them coming in to see their father in handcuffs. It might give them ideas.

"Gone with Nora and a phalanx of your security crew to the British Library," she looked happy. "There's a special exhibition of twentieth-century comics we thought they'd like to see, and as they already know their way around the place pretty well, there's not much for Nora to do except stop them from trying to read everything."

Mycroft looked at his wife's pleading face. It really would take only a moment.

"Very well then," he held out his wrists. "But only this once."

"In the story, the man is seated with his hands behind his back in a wooden seat," Cate indicated the nearby Captain's chair. "If you wouldn't mind?"

"You realise I am delaying State business to do this?" Mycroft sat, draping his arms behind him over the curved rail of the chair-back, waiting patiently as she clicked the handcuffs carefully over each wrist.

"I understand, and I love you for it," Cate checked the manacles were properly situated so as not to abrade his skin. Stepping back, she looked at her husband seated patiently in the wide wooden chair; sitting so quietly for her, his arms restrained behind his back, completely defenceless ... unable to move ...

A small, yet particularly irresistible devil sauntered casually into her thoughts.

She smiled. "Now all that remains is for you to keep talking while you extract yourself from the handcuffs," she smiled some more.

Mycroft registered a change in his wife's mood as she walked towards him, a curious little expression on her face. He had seen such a smile on numerous occasions but had not anticipated its appearance in the present circumstances. His face remained unmoved but his heart beat a brief tattoo.

Cate moved closer, resting the palm of one hand along his jawline, tipping his head so that their eyes aligned. Her hand slid down to his throat, resting against his chest. "I want you to show me how you'd escape from this," she murmured, supporting a knee on the side of seat by his hips, moving closer so that her mouth brushed the tension of his throat above his tie.

"It's simply a matter of maintaining structural tension and applying a certain level of pressure upon the ..." he closed his eyes as her breath floated along his skin.

Cate's lips moved towards the point of his jaw, brushing soft kisses along the way.

"What are you doing?" Mycroft's voice was whisper-soft. His eyes were still closed.

"Distracting you from escaping," she slid an arm over his left shoulder as her mouth reached his right ear.

"Is this part of your story?" he leaned into her touch, taking pleasure in the sensation of her fingers sliding through his hair.

She found his ear and nibbled the lobe, stroking his temple with the tip of her nose. "Not yet, but it might be if I'm inspired," she smiled against his skin. "I don't think even your mind can do both things at once."

"What both things?" his voice was the merest breath as he allowed Cate to tilt his head back.

"This both things," she murmured, finding his mouth with her own and taking it in a longing kiss that seemed to last forever.

"This is on Her Majesty's time, you realise?" Mycroft could barely form the words.

"She's a woman; she'd understand," Cate felt the hot pulse of desire behind her words as she leaned in and kissed him again, harder and deeper, feeling the tension in his body as he strove to maintain control.

"If you want me to stop," Cate breathed against his lips. "Just say."

"Don't stop," his broken whisper made her smile even more as heat rolled up beneath her skin. Resting her other knee up on the chair seat, she straddled his lap, wrapping him in her body, hugging him to her as she took her time exploring and teasing his mouth.

" _Catie_ ..." his groan was heartfelt.

"Patience is a virtue," she laughed softly, delighted at his enforced immobility, as her fingers raked up the back of his head and her kisses became demanding and needy. With the children around, it was difficult to be spontaneous, these days. The illicit thrill of physical intimacy beyond the bedroom melted her bones, as her hand trailed down to the buttons of his trousers.

Mycroft's breathing grew rougher as he tensed and relaxed beneath her every caress. The heat between them was rising and Cate felt herself begin to slip in her haste to free them both of obstructive clothing.

His hand caught her elbow, steadying her balance as she leaned back in, consuming him with kisses of pure passion. "I love you," she whispered stroking his skin, relaxing against him as both his arms wrapped themselves around her, holding her secure as the imperative of mutual desire claimed them both.

It wasn't until sometime later that Cate realised her husband could indeed multitask.

###

"So where are we on the spider-killings?" Lestrade returned from a meeting with the Super who advised him that nobody was going to take the case away, at least not if he were able to demonstrate progress in a timely manner.

"Put it at the top of the pile," the Super said, as if he had any idea of just how big the pile really was, but that was nothing new.

"We've already interviewed family and friends of the victims," Sally Donovan laid three rapidly thickening files down on her DI's desk. "There was nothing of much help on any of their records; no criminal history, no known criminal associations, no bad credit; there wasn't even a speeding ticket between them," she looked almost despairing. "Each man was married, worked and lived in London and solidly middle-class," she added. "There are only two things we've been able to find that connected them."

"Being?" Lestrade sipped a fresh mug of coffee and stared at the information on his computer screen. The department had lashed out on a new coffee vending-machine and it wasn't actually all that bad.

"Being that they all worked at the Charing Cross end of Whitehall," she said, resting her chin on her hand. "And they were all Civil Servants," the sergeant ticked off her fingers. "The first one worked in the British Council, just off the Mall. The second one was from the Department of International Development, and the last poor sod worked in Economic Policy and Research."

"So," Greg paused. "Are we looking for someone who's stalking victims from a particular area or because of their jobs?"

"We're still looking to see if any of them belonged to an Association or something – you know these public-school boys; they all end up belonging to the same club."

"Maybe they're all Masons?" Lestrade sipped his drink. "Perhaps they're all in on some exotic ritual that's gone wrong, and being bitten by a spider is some sort of ordeal?"

"But if so, someone would have seen something going on either during or after the bodies being discovered in the parks, surely?" Donovan shook her head. "What does Freak say?"

Enjoying the last of the coffee, Lestrade frowned. "Our resident genius says these are a series of hits connected by the one other thing the victims have in common," he paused, thinking of his earlier conversation with the younger Holmes.

"Which is?" Sally folded her arms and looked fatalistic. It was going to be something outrageously surreal, she just knew it.

"That each of the victims shares more than a passing resemblance to Mycroft Holmes," Greg puffed out his cheeks as he turned to face her. "And it's true; they all do."

"So we do what?" she asked, her hands lifted wide. "Keep an eye on every Whitehall Civil Servant who looks like Sherlock's big brother?"

Lestrade nodded slowly as he swivelled his computer screen to face her. It was covered in ID photographs of thin, dark-haired men and was not dissimilar to a catalogue of mug shots. "That's exactly what we might have to do."

###

Sitting at Baker Street, waiting for John to return with the information from the London Zoo, Sherlock sat and contemplated. That his brother's life was in genuine danger he did not doubt, regardless of the amount of security Mycroft draped around him. He wondered if the danger extended to Cate and the twins, although no interference had been attempted with the families of the other victims, so likely not. _Unless_ …

Unless the deaths thus far followed the smokescreen theory, in which case Mycroft was the intended target all along … but if this were the case, then why would the killer alert such a mind as Mycroft's to the possibility of an attack in the first place? If the deaths were part of some elaborate scheme, the killer obviously knew or at the very least, knew _of_ his brother by reputation. This being so, then the perpetrator would be aware of the effect such a smokescreen would have; could not fail to be aware how Mycroft would react. _Unless_ ...

"Spiders are not monstrous and are, in fact, on the cute side," John announced, striding into the flat and letting the door bang closed behind him. "Nor are they evil, chilling, or in the least bit scary if you know what you're doing," he sat in his chair and smiled happily.

Examining his flatmate, Sherlock observed the signs. Slightly flushed cheeks although the ambient external temperature was on the warm side, nor had John been exerting himself; a particularly sunny, almost aggressively cheerful smile; bouncy step; vaguely manic statements; yes, all the signs were there.

"I suggest you avoid the new Bolivian restaurant if you want to make a good first impression," he sighed, watching John's expression descend into its usual uncertainty. "When you take your new arachnology friend out for dinner," he clarified. "They serve tarantulas as an appetiser and she might be upset."

Looking faintly injured, John shook his head. "What on earth makes you think I have any plans to take Helen to dinner?" he dropped his hands down to the arms of his chair.

" _Helen?_ "

"My new ... er, the Head Arachnologist at the zoo," John rolled the _Rrrr_ with relish. "Helen Madly, as in Truly, _Madly_ Deeply, and _not_ as in Mad scientist, is a proper corker, and _yes_ , as a matter of fact," John paused, his smile growing. "I am taking her out to dinner tomorrow night, as it happens."

"In which case, I recommend the Ethiopian _gidan_ in Eastcastle Street," Sherlock tapped his lower lip. "They serve a goat dish you have to eat with your fingers and I've never met an entomologist, arachnologist or zoologist who wasn't an enormous carnivore," he folded his arms. "Unless, of course," he added. "You're letting her pick the first location of your pre-carnal _bacchanal_."

"First of all, Sherlock," John sounded entirely serious. "This is a dinner, not a bacchanal, and no, funnily enough, Helen did not want to select the restaurant. She said she doesn't get out enough to keep track of the best eateries, so she's deferred to my experience," he smiled, clearly pleased by the turn of events.

"You know the females are more deadly than the male," Sherlock lifted his eyebrows and linked his fingers. "She may be tempted to bite your head off after mating."

"Helen Madly is a perfectly reputable and thoroughly respectable scientist," John sat back and looked smug. "And should she ever desire a post-connubial snack, I will ensure to have a bag of crisps at the ready."

Sherlock's grin flashed and was gone. "Ever the romantic, John Watson," he shook his head as he leaned forward, his amused expression waning as quickly as the smile. "Now what did the good Doctor Madly have to say about gene-manipulation in spiders?"

###

After the children had returned with Nora, each bubbling with stories about the exhibit and how they had both had the opportunity to try their hand at sketching a scene involving live 'comic' characters, Mycroft felt relaxed and inwardly calm as he listened without comment as they all sat in the main lounge before dinner.

"And then a man stood up on a big box and looked like he was flying and we were all supposed to make a picture of him flying through the sky, Daddy," Blythe held out her very carefully rolled-up piece of art.

Though clearly the work of an amateur, Blythe had rendered a meticulous line-drawing of a man flying through the air, with thin lines attached at his every extremity, each line rising up and vanishing off the top of the paper. It was extraordinarily detailed and, while disproportionate in places, was an intriguing and provocative drawing.

"Why did you draw the man with lines rising upwards?" he asked, curious. "He looks like a puppet. Did he have strings?"

"No, Daddy," Blythe leaned against his leg, her finger tracing one of the lines. "But they said to imagine the man flying, and I imagined that he'd need something to keep him up off the ground and so I drew him strings."

"And who holds the strings?" Mycroft smiled fondly at her so-serious expression.

Blythe scowled in thought. "I'm not sure," she said, slowly "It might be God, or if the man really thinks he can fly then maybe he's holding up his own strings? Or maybe he's just imagining he can fly and the strings are all in his head?"

One or two hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he assessed his daughter's features. She really was growing up terribly quickly. Perhaps there was more merit in Cate's idea than he had allowed.

"Perhaps they are," he agreed, stroking her shining brown hair. "You are a very clever girl and I love your surprises, darling," Mycroft rested long fingers on her shoulder. "And shall we see what Jules produced?"

Leaning enthusiastically against his father's other leg; Julius offered another loosely rolled-up piece of heavy paper.

Uncoiling this one, Mycroft felt the rest of the hairs on his neck rise up.

It was a genuine piece of cubist art; bright primary colours fading down into a darker palette; the clear figure of a flying man depicted in an interlocking series of half-seen body-parts and a flapping cloak. The combination of space, mass and time fused in the efforts of a five-year old was unexpected.

"This is quite something, Jules," he muttered. "Did you make this all by yourself?"

"I did, Daddy," his little face bright with accomplishment. "There was a picture on the wall by a man called Mr Brack and I tried to paint the flying man just like the one on the wall."

 _George Braque, contemporary of Matisse and C_ _é_ _zanne_. And Jules had painted a flying man that Picasso would have recognised. Keeping his voice perfectly level, Mycroft asked if mummy had seen it yet. _If not, mummy was about to get a big surprise._

"I think these need to be framed and put up on the wall in next to Mummy's so I may look at each of them every time I walk past," Mycroft looked from one child to the other. "Will you let me take these away and have them framed for you?"

Blythe looked pleased. "Can mine be in a red frame, please?" she nodded. "Because red is the colour of passion, and ..."

"Where on earth did you hear about the colour of passion?" Mycroft interrupted her carefully.

She looked up at him and blinked, clearly evaluating her answer.

Jules giggled, transforming into instant innocence as his father's gaze swung towards him. "Well?"

"It _might_ have been in a book that I could have read," Blythe attempted to dissemble.

"Which book?" Mycroft favoured his daughter with a single raised eyebrow.

"How do you do that, Daddy?" she asked with a studied artlessness, pulling her eyebrow up in her fingers and mimicking the action. "It makes you look very clever."

"Which book?" Mycroft was an older hand than his children at prevarication, although it was only the years of practice that enabled him to keep a straight face.

"Perhaps it wasn't a book," Jules felt he ought to get involved; there was a fraternal loyalty at stake here, after all. "P'haps we might've read it in the newspaper?" if anything, his expression was even more virtuous than his sister's.

"Which book?" Mycroft added a second eyebrow and softened his voice, holding Blythe's gaze.

Her blue eyes, so much the mirror of his own widened slightly as she stared directly back, accepting the unspoken challenge.

"It might have been in the paper," she said, not blinking.

"You said book and you meant book," also unblinking, Mycroft leaned closer, one hand sliding unseen over the side of the armchair towards her.

" _P'raps_ I said book and meant something else?" she suggested evasively, not even the slightest hint of guile in her face.

"Perhaps you said book, meant book and now you're trying to make _Daddy_ think it was something else," he smiled, his fingers reaching around her back and finding the ticklish spots as she collapsed in giggles against him.

"It was Mummy's book that was up there," Blythe pointed behind her to the high mantelpiece.

Ah. _The_ _Lawrence_ : the colour of passion, quite. "And how did it manage to be read from up there?" he pulled her up to sit on his lap as she unrolled her drawing again and stared at the lines.

" _Hypothically_ ," she said, in a terribly earnest voice, "the fire poker might have been just long enough to knock it off the top, mighten it?"

" _Hypothetically_ , you may be right," Mycroft grunted as Jules clambered up to join his sister. They really were getting a little big to both sit on him at the same time, these days ... whenever had that happened?

"It was a silly book, in any case," Jules ran a careful fingertip along one of Blythe's flying man's strings.

"Why silly?" realising that _both_ his infant children had read something beyond the ken of many an adult, it was too late to deplore their exposure to such adult material; Cate would need to know there was no longer any place in the house safe now from juvenile predation. "Did you understand the story?"

Jules rolled up his flying man, carefully securing the paper with an elastic band. "It was about two little boys who never grew up," he said, eventually. "They kept thinking about their mummy."

Smiling above their heads, Mycroft wondered what Lawrence would have said to _that_ synopsis of _Sons and Lovers_. Though simple, the précis was accurate, after all. Another thought slid into his consciousness, a question, in fact.

"Indeed they did," he smoothed his son's ruffled curls and changed the topic. "Time for dinner, I think," he eased them off his lap, following as they scampered into the dining room.

His children were becoming more adult every day, but now it seemed they were maturing in leaps and bounds. Mycroft watched as Cate pushed Blythe's chair closer to the table; turning with a smile as she saw him standing there, her head tilting curiously at the expression on his face.

Helping Jules into his chair, Mycroft sat, still pondering the question of how Lawrence would have summarised _their_ situation. At this rate, it wouldn't be terribly long before the twins were almost entirely self-sufficient. What was happening to his offspring?

###

She realised it was probably a bad idea to return to Whitechapel so soon after the last visit, but the desire, once acknowledged, became a burning itch demanding remedy. Now that Mycroft was safely ensconced at his home and the upgraded security was in place while both Scotland Yard and MI5 duelled it out in what was becoming an investigation of far-reaching proportions, Anthea realised this was a period of time outside her normal working parameters; it was off the clock and nobody was going to be looking for her for the next few hours. _What the hell, then._

Letting the driver drop her off at Aldgate tube station, she quickly hailed a taxi and gave the cabbie the address in Stepney Way, her heart starting to beat a little faster as they got close.

It wasn't a terribly salubrious area and the driver, an older man with greying hair turned to her before she opened the door to leave.

"Sure this is the right place, Miss?" he sounded genuinely concerned. "This ain't a nice area for ladies to walk around in by themselves, not even in the daylight," he added, looking out through the front windscreen. "Get some funny buggers around her and that's for sure," he muttered.

"Thank you," Anthea paid, pressing an extra note in as a tip. "I appreciate the advice, but you have no need to worry about me in the slightest," she smiled, stepping out. "I'm not exactly a lady," she added, winking. She felt no need to add that she was probably one of the funny buggers herself.

Entering the establishment, she bypassed the frankly leering shopkeeper who acted as a plausible front for the real purpose of the organisation that was very definitely _not_ for public consumption.

Hoping she wouldn't be the only one free at the moment, she felt her heart pick up again as the low murmur of voices issued through the heavy curtain at the rear of the shop.

"Ah, my _dear_ ," the Count smiled openly as she entered the large room off the main passageway at the back of the shop. "We were just wondering if it was you who would be coming to join us this afternoon, and here you are," he said, nodding down at the table between them, a series of Tarot cards clearly showing the expected arrival of an important female.

"I had some unexpected free time this afternoon," she smiled in response. "I hoped there might be someone her so that I could continue where I left off," she paused, looking at the two men at the table. "Would that be possible?"

Sharing a glance, both men appeared to be weighing up her request.

"Probably," the second man whom Anthea only knew as _Dante_ , shrugged. "If you are ready to commit?"

"I'm ready," Anthea took an empty seat, resting both hands on the table in front of her. "I have the money and I'm perfectly willing to take the risk."

"Very well," the Count lifted his hands. "No problem, then," he smiled again, turning to a small black box on a shelf behind him. Placing it on the table between the three of them, he opened it and brought out three small black candles and a very sharp little knife with a dusty-looking blade. Pouring a small glass of water from the half-empty carafe, he placed it before her. Setting the candles in a triangle on the table, he lit them with an evil-smelling match that flared angrily, leaving a trace of greasy smoke hanging in the air.

" _Ad Satanas qui laetificat juventutem meam_ ," he muttered, waving the knife blade in the flame of all three candles as Anthea unbuttoned her cuff, laying one forearm, palm up on the table.

It was the work of a second for the man to nick the soft flesh at her wrist with the heated blade-tip, collecting a tiny stain of blood and then dipping the entire blade into the glass, swirling the water until it changed from clear to a faintly murky grey.

" _Drink_ ," the Count nodded. "And then we begin."

Taking a short, deep breath, Anthea picked up the glass and downed the tainted water without stopping.

"And now we begin," she smiled, turning the glass upside-down on the table.

###

Ensuring Cate had her own discreet security escort to the lecture at the LSE on Kingsway; Mycroft saw the children were safely in their beds while Nora worked in the kitchen. She had found several old pieces of silver tableware the last time she was cleaning out one of the cupboards at Deepdene. Eschewing contemporary cleaning chemicals as too harsh and not much good in any case, she had brought the silver back to town and, with the benefit of rose jewellery paste and a very soft toothbrush, was methodically cleaning the metal back to its shimmering beauty. It was a labour of love and other than making cakes, nothing pleased her so much as being able to sit down and treat the silver the way it was meant to be treated.

In addition to Nora, the townhouse was now being watched both directly from the street – even more secure since the security had been beefed up at the US Embassy the other side of Blackburne's Mews – and indirectly by several newly-installed and very discreet CCTV cameras in locations around the townhouse itself. While understanding the need for increased security, Cate had vetoed having any of his security people actually staying in the house; she didn't want the children thinking they were in danger all the time.

With such precautions in place, Mycroft at last felt able to leave his home in the care of others. The Jaguar collected him and brought him to a meeting place he'd not visited for nearly ten years.

Travelling well south of the Thames, the car drove quietly past Clapham Common and onto Circular Road towards Forest Hill in the gathering dark of the evening. Drawing to a slow stop outside what was now a listed building, Mycroft waited for the expected signal. A short burst of 1950's music echoed from out of nowhere.

_The signal._

"Wait here unless I advise otherwise, please," Mycroft stepped out and took a brief look at the edifice he now faced.

At street-level, it was a pub. _The Capitol_ was one of the new and trendy gastro-pubs, serving microbrews and imported liquors at prices that would make the average pub-goer blanch. At street-level, it was a bustling haven for the _uber_ -hip, goateed green-credentialed young professionals, usually working in the creative industries and media. At street-level, it was all these busy exciting things, so busy, in fact, that nobody ever bothered looking _up_.

 _Above_ street-level, it was an entirely different creation.

 _The Capitol Cinema_ had opened in 1929, but had shown its last film in 1973, after which it had become a bingo-hall and after _that_ had been abandoned into slow urban decay as years of neglect and dust took the building further and further away from viability.

Until, of course, the British Government discovered the site and set about making one or two _negligible_ changes.

At street-level, was a noisy and well-attended public house.

 _Above_ the heads of the trendy patrons, was one of South London's most cleverly concealed and extraordinarily secure meeting places and safe houses. _Very_ few people knew about the place, even fewer ever got to use it. Mycroft hadn't been here for a long time and was rather more than usually curious as to why he was here tonight.

When the pub had been remodelled, the upper circle of what had been the original cinema was left entirely unchanged. There were even stories put about that the place was haunted by the unhappy spirit of a man who had died during the performance of an ancient Western; the excitement of the weekly cliff-hanger being just a little too much for a weak heart.

Approaching a virtually undetectable side door to the building, which looked like badly painted old wood from the outside but which, in reality, was more recent tempered steel; a triple-layered matrix-eight-bolted 10 millimetre steel facing opening only to a secure electronic key-card. It accepted the slide of his Ultra card without the slightest response other than a faint click as the door opened inwards at his touch. For a door that weighed over two-hundred pounds, it opened like a warm breeze on a summer's night.

Stepping inside, Mycroft faced a set of solid winding stairs, again made to look like solid wood and again, related to something a great deal heavier than that.

Walking on the balls of his feet up the stairs, he found himself outside a second, but no less intimidating door. _This_ lock required a double-swipe of his card, as there were readers on both sides of the lock. It too clicked open with the minimum of fuss or sound.

Stepping into a long room dominated by a length of table sufficient to host a meeting of the Heads of Allied Forces, the remainder of the space was in semi-darkness but from his previous visit Mycroft knew there to be chairs, computers and a multiplicity of modern-day necessities.

"Hello, Mycroft," the man's voice was melodic and easy on the ear. "A Chivas for you?" he asked, extending the bottle so that the label was visible.

"If that's the '79, I would be delighted," hooking his umbrella on the edge of the table, Mycroft shrugged out of his coat, laying it over the arm of a chair.

Turning to look more fully at his host, Mycroft observed a man he last saw immediately following the rise into his current role. A great many things had changed in ten years.

Hugh Huth-Gardener, one of the cleverest people currently living in the British isles. The years had not been kind. The man Mycroft first met had been in late middle-age. Hugh had grown _old_ ; shrunk into himself and become somehow _small_. Deep lined shadows around his eyes made him seem ill. For a moment, Mycroft wondered if that were the reason for this exceptional meeting. Was Hugh dying?

"Hello, Hugh," Mycroft took the proffered libation. "It's been a while. Is Maggie joining us?"

"She should be here any time," the men clinked glasses and parted to seats either side of the long conference table. "You have a family now?" Gardener sipped the precious spirit carefully as if harvesting the taste for later.

"Amazingly, yes," Mycroft smiled behind his glass. "No one is more astounded at this than I," he added. "It was not part of the plan."

"And yet married life becomes you," Hugh nodded amiably. "You look well on it."

"And you?" Mycroft focused his observation fully on the man across the table. "Are you well?"

"Now Mycroft," Gardener waved an admonitory finger. "You are getting ahead of yourself. We should wait for Maggie."

As if summoned by the utterance of her name, the inner door opened to admit a petite woman with short blonde hair, bright red lips and a wicked smile.

"Hello, _Boys_ ," she assessed them both. "Mycroft, you look wonderful, you dog," she turned to Huth-Gardener. "Hugh, you look dreadful, what are we to do with you?"

"Maggie," Gardener stood, walking to the selection of bottles at the side of the room. "Chivas?"

"Only if it's the good stuff, this time," Lady Margaret Elizabeth Sutton Wherry caught Mycroft in a light embrace, kissing his cheek and stepping back to assess him in greater detail. She frowned, suddenly.

Handing the newcomer a crystal tumbler of the aromatic scotch, Hugh re-took his seat. The three of them had not met in the present decade; the last time had been on the occasion of Mycroft's accession to his present role.

"Thank you for coming here this evening," Gardener began, formally. "The reason I've called this extraordinary meeting is twofold," he added. "First ..."

"Oh Hugh, stop the adminitrivia," Lady Margaret plonked her tumbler down onto the table with a loud clunk. "We both know the reason we're here tonight," she turned to Mycroft and offered a sympathetic and understanding smile.

"Someone is trying to destroy you, my dear Mycroft; do you have any idea why?"


	4. Chapter 4

_Formulating an Argument – A Deadly Secret – The Path of Least Resistance – Hansel and Gretel – Rickard's – By the Pricking of My Thumbs – An Unexpected Witness._

#

#

There was a brief intermission.

Though she had not lived in London terribly long, in fact, had only become a resident when her career made it necessary, Cate had adapted to the great City with enormous enthusiasm and thought of it now as the only home she'd ever really want for the rest of her life. She loved the _oldness_ of the place; the endless and changing comparison between the towering ancient buildings and the striking glass monuments of modernity and corporate _hubris_. She loved the theatres and the restaurants and the cobbled laneways and slightly shabby pubs. Cate thought she had a reasonably comprehensive picture of the place in her head, but as she sat, listening to the lecture at the LSE that evening, she realised how wrong she had been.

From what she had heard tonight, her knowledge of the place was horribly limited and superficial at best. There was far more history and social importance attached to things she had never even heard of, let alone engaged with; the monuments and hidden secrets; the scandals of political necessity; the world of people who lived and _had_ lived here.

Thank goodness they were permitting members of the audience to record the whole thing on their phones; her hand would be cramping by now if she had tried taking notes. The entire thing was fabulous with stories of historical accident, aristocratic scandal and global influence. So fascinating were some of the revelations that the urge to rush right off and research a historical text nearly overcame her. She wondered if Mycroft knew half of the stuff she'd found so mesmerising tonight; she'd have to tell him when they met later.

He'd said he had a meeting with colleagues but that it should be over in time to pick her up at the end of the lecture and take her to _Rickard's_ , a late-night bistro and wine-bar in Soho. Not only was it one of the few places in the middle of town to serve his favourite scotch, but it did the most wonderful espresso. It was also a reasonably quiet place, with high-walled, deeply padded booths for customers to sit, linger and talk.

Cate rested a hand on her bag. It contained several brochures of schools that she thought might be suitable for the twins – one, in particular, seemed almost too good to be true and she wanted Mycroft to find out whatever he could about it, assuming, of course, that he would agree to even look. She knew she was doing the right thing by the children; that they were already beginning to need more than either of their parents could provide. Cate also knew that the bond Mycroft had forged with his children from almost the second they were born was something very special, possibly the deepest and closest connection he'd ever had in his life. Cate was willing to bet it was stronger even than the fraternal bond with his younger brother.

Even if Mycroft was not prepared to admit it to himself, it had become clear in the last few days that he wanted no weakening of this special link, that he was not prepared to risk its existence in the slightest way. It was equally clear that he assumed the twins going to school would do precisely that. She could not force a change of mind on him, nor would she ever try to do so, but he needed to understand that his fear was unfounded; that he would never be surpassed by anything in the eyes of his children. They _adored_ him.

She sighed, now all she had to do was to convince _him_ of this fact.

The lecturer cleared his throat and her attention returned to the lectern at the front of the room.

###

"I _told_ you this was a bloody stupid idea," John muttered at Sherlock's back as the two of them inched their way into the almost total darkness of the Regent's Park Zoo Laboratories. "Why you feel the need to break into a zoo at night to have a look at some computer or other defeats common-sense," John hissed angrily. "Helen Madly said she had no knowledge of any funny business going on with gene-manipulation of the spiders and I believe her, so tell me; why are we here again?"

"Firstly," Sherlock examined the lock on the main lab door; a common or garden double-cylinder deadbolt that any fool with a toothpick and a piece of steel wire could overcome. Holding a slim torch between his teeth, he did exactly that, catching the door from swinging open too freely in case of squeaks. "We are not breaking into the zoo, but into a laboratory," he said, sliding around the door and holding it for his flatmate. "And secondly," he murmured, flicking the torch-beam around the place to locate the offices rather than the larger space containing the terrariums and spider tanks. "Doctor Madly may well be being truthful when she claims no knowledge of gene-manipulation," he said. "However, I suspect your pet Arachnologist may not be privy to _all_ of what goes on here; Doctor Madly may be the senior Arachnologist, but she is not the senior _scientist_ at this lab, is she?"

"No," John considered. "She did say that there were a number of different DNA sequencing projects going on in different areas, mostly mapping genomes of locusts and the main crop-destroyers, but she knew of nothing to do with her spiders," he added. "Helen was pretty adamant about that."

"And as I said, I do not disbelieve her, but this is the largest lab of its type in Britain, and every one of my inquiries on gene-manipulation has returned pointing to the work being done here," Sherlock tested the locked handle on an inner door. It turned easily in his fingers. Really, he should speak to Mycroft about this: the security here was appalling.

"In which case, what exactly are we looking for?" following the younger Holmes into the room, John began staring around, unsure what he should be looking for.

"Anything on spider venom," Sherlock was already seated before the computer, shaking his head as it booted up directly into Windows Eight. These people had absolutely no sense of self-protection whatsoever. _Anyone_ could break in. "Reports, files, memos," he added. "I am almost certain there is something going on here connected to the Whitehall killings."

Scanning the darkened room as best he could, John noted shelf upon shelf of scientific texts and monographs; he ever saw Helen Madly's name on a few of them. But they were in plain view; nobody would hide anything in such an obvious place, would they?

With the idea still in his head, he leaned over and took down the three texts of Helen's that he could actually reach without a ladder and opened them up on the bench top beside him. As he thought, these were nothing more suspicious that the written version of several of her experiments. The second text was the same, although this one had numerous pencil-scribblings in the margins. He had opened the final book and was shaking it, exactly as he had the previous two, when a folded piece of paper fell at his feet.

Angling the opened sheet under the light of his torch, he frowned. The neat rows of letters and numbers looked like a scientific formula, far too complex for him even to begin working through.

"This anything?" he asked, laying the creased paper within his flatmate's sight. "Found it inside one of Helen's books."

Narrowing his eyes as he absorbed the details, Sherlock folded the paper back into a small square and gave it back. "Please replace it from wherever it came," he said. "It's not important right now, but best if it's still there in case someone comes looking for it."

"Anything on the computer?" John came to stand close behind Sherlock's shoulder, peering down at the dimly glowing screen. "Any secret files describing unethical experimentation on creepy-crawlies?"

Sherlock shut the thing down with a noise of frustration. "Not a thing," he grumbled. "Which is why they haven't bothered pass-wording the computer," he added. "There's absolutely nothing if any interest about _anything_ developmental on here," he said. "Nothing at all, it's almost as if …" Sherlock stopped, his eyes opening a little wider.

"Of course," he sat back in the chair and grinned. "Of _course_. Where better to keep all your secrets?" he stood and turned in a single movement, striding out of the office, he walked through the open area inside the door, heading through a pair of double glassed swing-doors the opposite side to the offices.

The lab glowed eerily in patches of dark blue as the nocturnal lighting on each of the main tanks combined to define the contours of the room. John noticed the smell seemed stronger in the dark than it had during the day, though there was still the same underlying humid sense of sand and heated rocks and things gently rotting.

Sherlock was standing beside the Black Widow tank that John had examined earlier in the day. The inhabitants appeared fractionally more active in the lower light, their elegant spikey limbs skittering down the sheer sides of the glass as they moved around within their safe transparent fortress.

"Where would it be, I wonder?" Sherlock was walking around the tank, looking for …

"Where would what be?" John stared between the faintly glowing tank and his friend and then back at the tank. Clearly, he was missing something.

"It would need to be somewhere easily retrievable and yet secure," he muttered, bending at the waist and peering into the glass sanctuary. " _Ah_."

"What ' _ah'_ , Sherlock?" John was getting a very bad feeling about this. "What are you going to do … you're not going to open the … I see you have already … _dear God_ , _Sherlock_ , _those things are deadly!_ "

"And _voila!_ " with the flourish of a stage magician, Sherlock turned towards his flatmate, fingers upraised, holding a small red-and-black USB under John's nose.

Rearing back in the same moment, the doctor's eyes focused not on the USB itself, but on the shiny black spider now clinging to the collar of his jacket, dislodged from the thumb drive.

" _Spider_ ," he sing-songed, his eyes straining sideways and unblinking as he watched the dainty thing lift one of its legs in the air as if testing the space around it for danger or … prey. " _Spider_ ," he barely whispered.

"Oh yes, I see," Sherlock frowned. "Don't move, John," he said softly. "They don't like noise."

"I am aware of that, strangely enough," the blonde man had stopped breathing in the interim. "Get it _off_ me."

"Hold still," Sherlock found a scrap of paper and lightly scooped the eight-legged visitor from his friend's neck and back into the tank as he opened the lid a second time, shaking the little arachnid back into its cosy home. "All gone now," he said, as if speaking to a toddler. "Let's see what secrets our lethal friends have been safeguarding, shall we?"

Leaning back against the corner of the heavy steel bench, John closed his eyes and inhaled softly.

It was the work of seconds for Sherlock to open the series of files on the thumb-drive, again, none were encrypted and it was child's play to locate the key notes. His eyes flickering at speed, he took in several pages of notes and appended formulae, before ejecting the small piece of technology and removing any trace of his activities on the computer. He wanted to copy and email the entire contents to his own laptop but he couldn't risk having a record left on the computer activity log; not that anyone would notice, given the horrendous state of their security. Nor could he take the USB with him since the dates on the recorded files were very recent, it was likely used on a daily basis and its loss would be quickly noticed.

Hiding confidential files in the tanks with the venomous spiders was a clever idea though, he had to admit. It made him think about acquiring a vivarium for Baker Street – he could keep all _sorts_ of stuff in there and Mycroft would never go anywhere near the thing; he hated spiders.

And now he had another conundrum to resolve; when to tell John about the contents of the USB.

###

Sipping slowly from his glass of scotch, Mycroft considered the question-statement. Margaret Wherry was not given to irrational outburst, nor was she overtly emotional, although he recalled she had a fondness for reality television, which she sometimes watched into the wee hours of the morning. He repressed a delicate shudder.

"I thank you for your concern, but you may be overstating the situation," he said. "Admittedly, there have been one or two minor inconveniences of late, but nothing that would suggest I was the focus of some vendetta."

"The deaths of your lookalikes?" Hugh waved his glass in the air. "The bomb-scare of this morning? And now they seem to be bringing your family into this."

 _Interesting_. Not interesting that Hugh or Maggie expressed unease, but rather that they would have access so quickly to such protected information. The phone call Cate had received had been only a matter of hours before and his people were still chasing down the complex and well-hidden nature of the man who had made it. It was proving to be difficult: whoever it was knew what he was doing and thus far, all investigations had led nowhere.

Either there was a mole within his operation, or these two had grown some very long ears.

"Indeed," Maggie joined in. "One of the reasons we advised you against a family at the outset was to avoid situations of this nature," she sighed. "Now that there are young children to consider ..."

Mycroft felt a curious desire to growl his response and it was only by some little effort that his voice remained calm and civil. "Should any person or persons take an untoward interest in either my children or my wife, they will meet an unquiet end," his words were soft but there was steel in them.

"Oh, really, now Mycroft," Maggie looked unhappy. "You're making this harder than it needs to be."

Perhaps it would be wise to hear what his colleagues had to say. They were, after all, two of the three cleverest people in London.

"Very well," he saluted the petite blonde woman with his glass of whisky. "What would you suggest?"

Leaning forward, his voice purposeful, Hugh Huth-Gardener fixed Mycroft's eyes with his own. "Back off," he said. "Put whatever project or escapades you have on hold for the time being; take a step back from everything that might be causing this attack on you."

"You would have me shy from my obligations?" Mycroft was a little surprised; if there was one thing they all shared, it was that nothing came between them and their responsibilities to the country.

"Not at all, dear boy," Maggie Wherry shook her head. "We merely suggest that you take the path of least resistance for a while, until whoever it is that's determined to cause you such problems has been discovered and dealt with."

"Not that I agree there is a problem, you understand," Mycroft sat back and crossed his legs. "But even were it so, I always take the path of least resistance."

"Perhaps, but your path usually involves obliterating the resistance rather than working around it," Maggie stood. "Anyone want another scotch? It's bloody freezing in here for some reason."

"I like it cold," Huth-Gardiner leaned back and finished off his whisky. "I save the government thousands of pounds every year by returning its offices to a more characteristic temperature for the British Isles," he said. "Some of these places are set up like an equatorial rain forest."

"So what do you suggest I do next, in practical terms? I cannot simply terminate all operations. If there is indeed a campaign of obstruction or worse, against me, any cessation on my part would immediately alert those responsible."

"Then slow down on a few things and move to a more secure headquarters, at least on a temporary basis," Hugh looked serious. "If you continue like this, heaven knows what's going to come of it all."

"And where would you suggest I set up a temporary HQ?" Mycroft smiled faintly. "To be more secure than the DoD, it would have to be somewhere fairly unreachable. On one of Windermere's islands, perhaps? The Outer Orkneys?"

Summoning an image to the screen of his phone, Huth-Gardiner passed the device across to Mycroft. One glimpse of the white-porticoed, neo-classical work of John Soane told him a great deal about the level of his colleague's unease.

"This is a most unusual proposal," he said, handing the phone back. "Anyone ensconced within that location would be as secure as ..."

"As the Bank of England itself, indeed," Huth-Gardiner smiled. "Precisely the reason the Old lady of Threadneedle Street will open her doors," he said. "I even have an office all picked out for you."

"Indeed?" Mycroft toyed with his empty glass; this was becoming more intriguing by the minute. "Then I am hardly in a position to refuse, am I?"

###

They were supposed to be asleep.

It was well after their bedtime and Nora was downstairs watching the television; they could hear the vague sounds of distant dialogue and music.

"So how are we going to show them we can manage all by ourselves?" Jules waited to hear Bly's idea; she always had the best ideas. Sometimes they were a bit scary, but they were always clever ones.

"They need to know that we can look after ourselves if something goes wrong and they're not there," Blythe announced logically. "If they see that we can be alright in a problem and that we don't run around screaming like babies, then they will be more happy to agree to letting us do what we want," she added.

"So what we need then," Jules lay in his back in bed thinking. "What we need is for there to be a problem for us to get out of."

"That makes sense," Blythe folded her hands behind her head. "We need to find something that looks all terrible on the outside but isn't really, but they won't know that so when we fix the problem all by ourselves, they'll agree we are super clever and let us do anything else that we want to do," she paused. "They'll be so happy to see us not being in trouble, they'll have to agree with what we ask."

"I suppose so," Jules wasn't entirely convinced. It sounded like a good plan; Bly's plans usually were, but this one seemed a bit more serious than any of the other ones they'd done before. Also, he didn't think daddy would let them do _anything_ they wanted, no matter how clever they could be. Jules could imagine his father's expression: he'd get that _look_ which said that there had better be a really _really_ good explanation or there would be no reading in bed for a whole _week._

"So now then," Blythe's voice had that tone which said she was working things out in her head at the same time as saying them. "All we have to do is work out what would be a terribly serious looking thing on the outside but isn't really on the inside?"

"I don't know," Jules frowned. "Nothing inside the house would be serious enough, so it has to be something outside."

"It has to be something on the outside that we can handle, but it has to look scary enough so that they'll be amazed at how clever we are when we fix it ourselves," Blythe smiled in the darkness of their room. "And I know just what it should be."

"What?" Jules turned to face his sister's bed, even though it was too dark to see her face.

" _Hansel and Gretel_ ," she said. "Remember the story of Hansel and Gretel?"

Jules remembered the story perfectly well. "But where could we go? And when could we do it?

""Tomorrow is perfect, when we go to the university with mummy, we can sneak out then. Nobody will find us, and after a whole day we can find our way out and everyone will say how clever we are to be so brave."

"Won't mummy be upset when she can't find us?"

"It's only going to be for a day; she won't be that upset in a day," Blythe sounded confident.

Jules thought. It really _was_ only going to be a day, "We'll miss lunch."

"We can go after lunch and take an apple with us and a bottle of water," she was happy now, planning. "And we can take a book each so's not to be bored."

"And a torch," Jules nodded to himself. He had a special extra-strong torch Uncle John had given him for his birthday.

"There's a big bar of chocolate in the pantry for Nanny Nora's cakes," Blythe agreed. "We don't want to starve while we're being brave and clever."

Feeling that they had thought of all the important things, Jules closed his eyes and let sleep take him. Tomorrow was going to be an exciting adventure.

They were going to get properly lost.

###

Sliding into one of the secluded booths at _Rickard's_ , Cate smiled at the young woman who handed her two menus. There was already a drink's menu on the table, but the supper dishes changed all the time.

"I'm ravenous," she said tucking a strand of hair behind an ear and picking up one of the hand-written cards.

"The only time you're not starved is when you're unwell," Mycroft smiled at his wife's face. "Just as it's the only time you feel cold," he said, taking the other menu from her. "The children are the same," he added. "It's probably something Welsh and unnatural."

"It's not unnatural," Cate ran her eyes down the listed items. "I've been checked by medical experts who actually know what _unnatural_ means," she smiled at him. "I'm just naturally hot."

"I thought it was better to be cool?"

"I am cool, according to my students."

"The endless evolution of contemporary idiom is far too complex for one of Her Majesty's lowly servants," Mycroft smiled behind his menu.

"You forgot to say 'middle-aged'," Cate smiled behind hers.

"Lowly _and_ middle-aged," he agreed. "A tragic case, in fact."

"You weren't tragic in the least at lunchtime," her covert smile became a grin as she met his eyes over the top of the cards. "Quite the opposite."

"You are an inspirational motivator, my love," he laid the menu down and appreciated the woman next to him. She was indeed a compelling force in his life. "Be careful lest I am inspired to make you a gift of something."

"You and your gifts," Cate shook her head, still smiling. "I'm having the _Escargot Bourguignon_ , what do you fancy?"

"The Gruyère Tart sounds tempting," he handed both menus back to the waiter.

"And a half-bottle of the '98 _Montrachet_ , please," Cate was well aware of Mycroft's preferences.

He looked at her, his smile becoming thoughtful. "Very well," he said, leaning back against the padded wall. "Will you tell me, or am I expected to deduce?"

"Deduce what?" Cate tasted the wine. It was wonderful and she nodded her approval.

Taking up his own glass, Mycroft swirled the clear white burgundy and inhaled the fragrance; its heady flinty bouquet as pleasing as the eventual taste.

"Whatever it is you are attempting to soften me up for," his voice was good-humoured, his eyes expectant.

She sipped her wine again. It was impossible to pretend with him. "I might have wanted your rapt attention while I enthralled you with details of the LSE lecture," she said over the rim of her hock glass.

"You might indeed, but we both know the _real_ reason would be the documents you've harboured in your bag for the last two days, waiting for an appropriate moment to spring them on me," he said, his blue eyes clear and untroubled. "And given the direction of your recent thoughts, I further suggest you have details of three different schools you want me to consider," he swirled his wine.

Reaching around to her bag, Cate extracted three unpretentious brochures, each featuring the name of a different scholarly establishment at the top. " _These_ ," she said. "These all sound wonderful for the twins and I want you to give them a considered evaluation as an educated adult rather than as their father," she paused. "And how did you know there would be three?"

"You like things in threes," he murmured, spreading the documents out before him.

There were indeed three pamphlets, each detailing a paragon of academic virtuosity within relatively easy reach of Culross Street.

"I particularly like this one," Cate singled out the plainest brochure; _The Onslow Academy for Advanced Development_. "It's one of the least pretentious ones I could find," she said. "It's actually in Onslow Gardens, which should appease your patrician sensibilities, and consists of very small groups of children in project-led groups, each aspect of the project based on the ability of each student regardless of demographic," she paused. "They even mix up the ages of the students in each group; a genuine meritocracy," she looked enthusiastic. "I think the twins would love something like this, since we cannot possibly put them in a normal infant school. They'd have the class in an uproar and all the teachers in tears before the first day was out."

"I thought you were too much a Socialist to be an elitist?" he turned the pages of the leaflet in his fingers.

"If you mean do I want everyone to aspire to their highest ability of achievement, then yes; I suppose I am something of an elitist," Cate frowned. "Though different people have different abilities, and each one is as legitimate as the next."

"And now a Marxist. What will you be teaching my children next, I wonder?"

"I doubt I will need to teach them much at all, they already know how to find answers far better than I can give them," Cate sat back as the waiter appeared with her food. "Snails, _yum_."

"You particularly like this one?" Mycroft examined the wicked-looking cheese tart in front of him. "The Onslow Gardens School?"

"Of all the places I've seen thus far, it looks the most appealing," Cate waved her snail-tongs in the air. "I'd like you to have a look at it and see how you feel."

"Any objections to my vetting the place?"

"Define vetting," Cate stopped attempting to skewer a snail and watched his face. There was vetting and then there was _Mycroft's_ brand of vetting.

"I have my people take a general look at their claims to excellence, possibly arrange for someone to have a brief interview with ..." he turned to the second page of the pamphlet "Mrs Alice Gordon, Principal," he said. "Just a gentle stroll through the history and financial set-up of the organisation, nothing overtly intrusive or taxing."

"Will they know anything about the checks?" Cate had no wish for the school authorities to be put off from considering the twins. Assuming it went that far.

"These are _my_ people we're talking about, darling," Mycroft closed his eyes, at peace with the world as the pastry melted in his mouth. "The school will be completely unaware, I give you my word."

Realising that to have him even consider a place for the children was a huge step forward, Cate thought if she hindered the checks, he'd probably find a way to postpone any decision about the twins.

"Very well," she said, agreeing. "On the condition that I get to see everything your people unearth."

"Of course," Mycroft was sweetness and light.

She was pleased; he was being wonderfully co-operative and non-devious.

He was pleased; she hadn't asked whom he would send to interview the Principal; there was only one person he would trust with that task. _Himself_.

Picking up his glass, he clinked the rim with hers. "My love," he smiled.

###

This was the second consecutive night that she had spent in Whitechapel. She had tried a _Calling_ , pulling someone to her from a distance, someone who had no reason to otherwise contact her. It had taken more than thirty minutes, but sure enough, her Nokia rang; her florist had some new oriental lilies in and did she want some kept back for her? The woman sounded a little hazy as to why she had rung, claiming it was a spur-of-the-moment thing and they left it at that.

Anthea was pleased. All her life until now had been devoted to things of external importance. Things of power, to be sure, but still things requiring little more than a good brain, plenty of organisational skills and a lot of patience. She had always felt there must be _more_ to it than that; something that would use her entire energies, and not just her intellectual ones.

The advertisement in the back of the paper had caught her eye. Nothing grand or flashy, the brief heading _When the Mind is Not Enough_ , had held her attention and the advertisement, as she read further, had sparked her curiosity too.

Of course, she knew going in that this was probably all a scam; some facile con to part the unwary from their money. What she hadn't reckoned on was that these things actually seemed to _work_. Not just occasionally, not in a random, luck-of-the-draw kind of thing, but worked in a way that made results predictable and repeatable. There was something vaguely scientific about the whole set-up.

When she'd first met the Count, Anthea fell immediately silent, knowing without hesitation that this man could not possibly be what he claimed. Of course, the impossible thing turned out to be true; he actually _was_ the Third Viscount Marchnesse, she had checked him out herself. The man was British nobility but had, he said, turned away from his life of privilege and rank to follow a fascination with the pagan arts. It seemed he possessed something of a talent in the field and things had progressed from there to a meeting of like minds and the eventual founding of the Association.

 _The Association_ was indeed a group of like-minded individuals, each one talented in a particular area or field of interest. Several of the members were senior managers of multinational organisations, a few owned fairly significant companies in their own right. One woman was a skilled goldsmith in Garrard's, the royal jewellers, and one of the men she had only met in passing turned out to be a senior producer for the BBC. Without exception, every member of the group was an intelligent and high-powered individual. There were, including the Count, twelve of them already.

The reason they met in such an out-of-the-place and, frankly, rather dubious spot was professional discretion; none of them could afford to be openly connected to something so arcane and misunderstood.

And, Anthea, the Count said, was the final person they had needed to complete the group. As her speciality was communications, then she probably had an underlying talent for that without even realising it was what had drawn her to the field. Thus all of her recent experiences had been connected, in some way, to improving her ability to communicate.

But not by _normal_ means.

Though she hardly believed it herself, Anthea was increasingly impressed at her apparent ability to communicate with people now simply by thinking about them; her thoughts themselves seemed to take flight through the ether and reach whoever it was she wanted to reach. The thing with the florist had been one of an increasing number of instances where she was able to call others to her.

Her hairdresser, about an appointment.

The bank, about increasing her credit limit.

Harrods, about her favourite chocolates.

And now she was being shown how to _send_ information across distances, regardless of time or location, and this was much harder, but the Count and the others all helped her to persevere, just as each one of them sweated and groaned as they focused, focused and _focused_ on their own efforts..

This was the reason for the consecutive nights in Whitechapel. She sat now, half-slumped over the big circular table, head in hands, eyes gritty from a lack of sleep. All she wanted was a cup of tea and to sleep for the rest of the day, but she was expected at work.

Forcing a smile to her face, she stood, exhausted. Tea wasn't going to do it; she needed a series of strong coffees. Nor did she really have time to go home and clean up, it was already too late. She would simply have to make the best of it and hope nothing big was going to happen today.

Rummaging in her bag for a lipstick, Anthea dragged fingers through her hair as she walked out into the very early morning and _Called_ for a cab.

A familiar black shape appeared within minutes.

###

Lestrade was never at his best this early in the day, not even when he had a large coffee in his hand; it would be at least other thirty-minutes or so before his thinking caught up with the rest of his body.

He stood in the grey light at the Palace end of St. James's Park, next to the Peacock Fountain under the auspices of the Victoria Memorial and stared at another body lying tidily on the ground beside the fountain's stone catchment.

A tall, dark-haired man in his middle years, dressed in an impeccable suit. There was even a bowler next to him on the grass. It must have slipped off the dead man's head as he fell back onto the grass.

Another suspicious death, another horribly familiar corpse. Both he and his team had immediately looked for spider-bite marks and sure enough, there was a raised red mark on the inside of the man's little finger.

Lestrade sighed frustratedly. This was the fourth death; _correction_ ; the fourth _unexplained_ death, and his superiors were making louder and louder noises. If he couldn't come up with some sort of a lead, they'd force him to hand everything over to MI5 whether he wanted to or not. And if _that_ happened, he'd never hear the end of it.

Sherlock had disappeared and was answering his texts with 'Busy' responses. There was nothing much else to go on: inquiries were proceeding, although this death was the same as all the others.

Except in one thing.

This time, there was a witness.

"And he was still alive when you got to him?" Greg handed over his coffee; the early-morning jogger was as white as a sheet and his need was greater.

Sipping the savagely hot and sweet drink, the runner found his wits and nodded. "Just," he said.

"Was he able to say anything?" Lestrade felt his pulse speed.

"Only two words," the jogger shivered. "It was a name," he said. "It could have been the name of whoever was with him."

"And what was the name?" This might be the break they needed and Greg found himself stilling his breathing, waiting.

The jogger took a deep breath. "Mycroft Holmes," he said. "That was the name, _Mycroft Holmes._ "


	5. Chapter 5

_Not Just Cuckoo Clocks – An Early Start – The Bank of England – A Working Class Witness – All the Time in the World – An Inspector Calls – Lost._

#

#

John yawned hugely as he walked down the stairs and into the kitchen in 221B. Filling the kettle, he rummaged around in the breadbin for a couple of slices and wondered if there was any marmalade left. It was a particularly bitter lemon one and His Nibbs had taken rather a liking to it. Putting the toast on, he took a mug of tea with him into the lounge, only to realise Sherlock was stretched out on the settee in his usual meditative pose.

"Didn't hear you get in last night," John yawned again sitting in his chair and resting the mug on the arm beside him. "Where'd you disappear to yesterday?" he asked. "Greg Lestrade was trying to reach you all day about these spider murders," he added. "He called me, saying he'd sent you umpteen messages but only got an automatic busy response, so you must have been somewhere where you couldn't pick up your incoming calls or you were too occupied doing something else," he said. "So?"

" _So?_ " Sherlock didn't as much as twitch. John wasn't even sure he had breathed.

"So, where were you?"

"Switzerland."

"You went to Switzerland?" the blonde man was a surprised, but only a little. This was, after all, _Sherlock_. "Yesterday? You went to Switzerland yesterday, by yourself?" he checked, to be sure.

"Basel, to be precise," Sherlock kept his eyes closed tight.

"And what's in Basel that you had to fly there for yesterday?" John was openly curious now. "Had a sudden craving for chocolate? Mrs Hudson needed a new clock?"

"Tea would be nice," the younger Holmes still hadn't moved a muscle.

"Yes, it is, actually," John agreed, sipping loudly and smacking his lips in obvious enjoyment. "Good old British tea," he said. "Can't beat a cup of tea to make you feel…"

"I met with a couple of senior organic chemists at _Roche_ , the Swiss pharmaceutical people," Sherlock sighed. "I knew them from university and the conversation wasn't one they were willing to conduct over the phone."

"And what did you need to speak to Organic Chemists about in Basel?" John spoke from the kitchen where he was pouring a second tea. "Not some weird drug program you want to get on, I hope?"

Taking the mug and flinging himself upright, Sherlock sipped, then frowned as he burned his lip. "Spider venom," he muttered, blowing on the hot drink.

 _Ah_. The penny started to drop. The creepy-crawlies had to be good for something.

"The venom is harvested and used in anti-toxin pharmaceuticals, of course," John returned to his seat, nodding. "Did your _Roche_ chaps have anything of interest to say?"

"Even though synthetic venom is available, they still prefer the real thing when they can get it," Sherlock tested the tea's heat. "They usually source their harvested material from four places," he tried another sip and found the drink more to his liking. "Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, Atlanta and London's Regent Zoo," he added. "They said the London supply has dried up somewhat in the last few months; no explanation given, just sorry, no excess venom available."

"The zoo-lab usually sends out only its _excess_ venom?" John looked interested. "Which means that either the little spiders have become oddly unco-operative, _or_ …"

"Or there's something going on at that lab which is using up a great deal of Latrotoxin," Sherlock nodded, gazing at the mug in his hands, his thoughts much further away. "But why use a modified form of the venom to murder men that look like Mycroft?" he frowned again, resting the side of his head against his hand. "The murders are one thing and the hybrid venom is another thing, so why are both of these things being put together?" he made an impatient face. "There has to be a connection, but this scenario is over-complicated, as if it's being deliberately …" he stopped suddenly. "Oh _yes_ ," and suddenly there was a grin in his voice. "That's actually rather clever."

Knowing a fancy bit of deduction had just flown over his head, John waited. Any moment now …

"There _is_ a connection, John," Sherlock's voice was exultant. "And it most _definitely_ involves my brother."

###

Cate had woken at the sound of Mycroft's quiet dressing. Though he made almost no noise at all, she was used now to his routine and despite it being earlier than usual, she found herself blinking awake.

"Did I wake you?" he stepped closer to their bed. "Sorry, Darling," he slid a link into a cuff. "Go back to sleep; no need to be up just yet."

Lying back against her pillows, she smiled up in the dim light. "Not sleepy anymore," she rubbed her eyes and sighed, knowing she'd have to get up soon in any case; the twins were to be dropped off at the University crèche and then she had to pick up some books before heading off to the photographer's at eleven-thirty.

"Are we still on for lunch?" she asked, stretching her toes out beneath the duvet. "Or are you going to be occupied supervising the floral arrangements for your new office?"

"My new _temporary_ office has probably never seen a flower in its entire existence," he smiled, adjusting the second cufflink. "Can we leave lunch plans until later in the morning? I'll have a clearer picture of what's happening by then."

"I have my date with the nice young photographer this morning," Cate closed her eyes and yawned a little. "It would be a shame for me to get all dressed up and not make the most of it," she added. "You could take me somewhere impressive and I wouldn't feel as if I were letting the side down, for once."

Walking across to the side of the bed, Mycroft smiled down, leaning one hand against a pillow as he bent forward to kiss the tip of her nose. "You never let the side down, my love, although ..." he stood, pondering. "Lunching in a smart restaurant with a beautiful, well-dressed and sophisticated woman at my side is not exactly an ordeal," he added. "You said the photography session would last no more than an hour?"

"Dominic swore he would take no more than that," she confirmed. "Besides," she blinked. "I can't imagine what he'd possibly want to do that would take even that long," she said. "It's not as if it's a fashion shoot, or anything."

"Considering the garments you intend to wear," Mycroft sat on the side of the bed and moved some hair from her face. "I cannot imagine any man hurrying. Promise not to be too appealing, won't you? The youth of today have such little willpower."

Cate laughed, _happy_. People assumed Mycroft had no sense of humour and yet he was one of the most amusing people she'd ever known. "I always knew Sherlock couldn't be the only insane one in the family," she lay back against her pillows, grinning.

"I'm insane about you," his voice dropped half an octave as he leaned closer, an understated smile curling his mouth.

Her heart instantly dancing a little tarantella, Cate slid an arm around his neck, feeling the heat of him through the smooth linen of his shirt, inhaling the enticing male scent of fresh skin and subtle cologne. "Then stay a little while longer," she whispered, lifting up until she met his lips with her own. " _Stay_."

"Ah, _God_ , Catie ..." he groaned, closing his eyes briefly before leaning back. "Now I know where the twins get it from."

"Get what?" her eyes were bright.

"Their ability to wheedle whatever they want from me," he leaned forward again, pressing a gentle kiss to her mouth. "I'll call you before lunch if I can get away," he promised. "Though I suspect I may be uncommonly busy."

"But lunchtime, perhaps?"

"Perhaps," he nodded, standing to reach for his jacket. Looking back at the smiling woman in the bed, he took a deep breath as he left the room.

_The things one did for Queen and country._

###

Her Nokia beeped an incoming call just as the cab dropped her off in Spring Gardens. Although it was still very early, Anthea knew the offices would be staffed around the clock and no matter what time she arrived, she could enter – perhaps even have a little time to freshen up before the day started.

She took the call standing beneath Admiralty Arch as rain was threatening.

"We've moved to EC2," Mycroft's voice suggested this wasn't a whim. "Until the authorities are able to track down the source of our recent woes, I have been persuaded to relocate, temporarily," he added.

"Where in EC2?" Anthea wished he'd called before she'd let the cab go. Still, there was nothing stopping her from locating another. Anthea closed her eyes momentarily and sent out a psychic summons. "The address?"

Mycroft sounded amused. "Threadneedle Street," he said. "And there's no address."

 _Ah_. There was only one building in that street without an address. More than ever now, Anthea wished she felt more alert; she was going to be exhausted come the end of the day.

Fortunately, a black cab arrived just as the rain was beginning to fall and since traffic was still relative light, the vehicle had zipped up the Strand and into Fleet Street in moments. The iconic Threadneedle edifice loomed faintly in the dull morning, early sun streaking light across its white-grey pillars. Unsure where to go, Anthea realised it made no difference and left the cab outside the main gates of the building. Heading in through the enormous central archway, taller than a normal house, she made her way into the main hall.

Her shoes tapping softly across the shiny marble mosaic floor, she headed through an ancient brass turnstile and made her way up to a rather more modern reception desk.

"Mycroft Homes?" she raised her eyebrows.

The uniformed man looked at her, found a single name on a list attached to an ID photo and asked for a signature. Then he pointed his finger towards the far corner of the hall, at a very small, very discreet lift.

As she walked away, the security guard pressed an almost invisible intercom button.

###

"What do you mean, 'he said the name in a significant way'?" Greg Lestrade sat at the table, leaning forward on his folded arms. "The man was taking his last _breath_ for God's sake. In what other way was it 'significant'?"

"Like it was the name of whoever done it," the witness to the early-morning death shrugged. "Like it was an accusation or something."

"Did the deceased actually say the words 'Mycroft Holmes did it'?" Donovan was watching the man's body-language; so far, he'd been telling the truth.

"Not in so many words, no," the Londoner sounded mildly disappointed. "He didn't actually say who it was what done him in, no."

"Have you any idea of who this Mycroft Holmes might be?" Lestrade felt it wise to check they were dealing with an unbiased witness.

"Some posh bastard, by the sound of that name," the jogger leaned back and folded his own arms. "Some nob from Oxford or Eton, or one of those toffee-nosed places," he added. "Who is it, anyway?"

"So; not much sympathy for the Upper Classes?" Greg managed to keep a straight face, but it wasn't entirely easy.

"Nah, posh bastards," said the man in the Nike tracksuit and Zanotti trainers, with a brand-new pair of Beats headphones around his neck. "Come the revolution ..." he nodded, folding his arms and looking severe.

"Thank you, Mr, _er_ ..." Lestrade looked down at the paper on top of the newest file.

"Selfridge," Sally smiled and stood. "Thank you, Mr Selfridge, for assisting us with our inquiries this morning; it's very much appreciated."

"Yeah, well," the man stood. "Glad to do my bit," he said. "You gonna find whoever done it?"

"We'll certainly be giving the matter our fullest effort," Sergeant Donovan opened the door and ushered the man through. "Please follow me, Mr Selfridge, and I'll see if one of our cars can drop you off, yeah?"

As the sound of their footsteps fell away, Lestrade pulled out his phone and dialled the special number for the second time in as many days.

It was answered almost immediately.

"Mycroft; you have a problem," the DI sat back and looked up at the ceiling. "We need to talk," he added. "Where are you?"

There was a faint murmur at the other end of the conversation.

"No, really," Lestrade wasn't in the mood for jokes. "Where are you?"

Another murmur.

"What, really?"

 _Murmur_.

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes," Lestrade stood, looking bemused. "Don't even _think_ of leaving before I arrive."

###

Bundling the twins into the back of the Jaguar Mycroft had sent back and insisted they use – a nuisance, all this additional security – Cate made sure both children had their bags and books and lunch-boxes and their Kindles and little bottles of water. She piled her own baggage in the boot

"Have you forgotten anything?" she looked at the two children sitting quietly. They shook their heads in unison. "Have I forgotten anything?" They grinned, shaking their heads again. "Good, then let's go."

The security person _du jour_ was known to the family only as Casper-22. "My call-sign," the young woman had smiled and tapped the ear-piece of her personal receiver. "We're not supposed to tell anyone our real names for security reasons," she explained to Jules when he asked why. "It's to make sure nobody can find out where we live. You can call me _Casper_ if you like."

Right now, Casper was ensuring Jules' special seat-belt was fastened all the way up, just as Cate was doing with Blythe.

"Yes, the appointment at the photographer's is this morning," Cate confirmed when the incognito security agent was establishing the day's activities. "It's only a short distance from the university; I can walk there from the campus ..." she stopped, observing the slowly lifting eyebrows on the younger woman's face. "But instead I shall get a taxi direct to the studio in Gosfield Street, and wait there until my husband meets me for lunch."

"Mr Holmes is meeting you for lunch?" Casper spoke quietly into a tiny microphone on the left side of her shirt-collar. "Is this verified?"

"If, by _verified_ , you mean has my husband made up his mind, then no, he hasn't. He promised to call me sometime this morning if he could get free."

"If you're not returning immediately to Culross Street in the car, I can't let you out of line-of-sight at the present time, Professor Holmes, _sorry_ ," Casper returned to muttering into her collar, then looked back, a quick smile on her face. "But _Provost-3_ says he can call by and take you there, to be on the safe side," she said, knowing that the young man was one of Cate's favourites. The two of them shared a fascination with 1950's American pulp Science Fiction and could spend hours discussing the various merits of Asimov, Bradbury and Clarke.

Escorting the family up to the crèche, Casper took up her usual place outside the room – there were no other exits and she had a perfect view of the main corridor, toilets and lifts from here. She settled onto her semi-comfortable stool and plugged an iPod into her free ear.

Cate was chatting with the two childcare workers, waiting until her escort arrived. The extra precautions were not lost on the university staff, but they had learned not to bother asking questions as no real answers had ever been forthcoming.

As soon as the Science Fiction _aficionado_ arrived, Cate ruffled the twins' hair, bade them farewell and left them for the morning.

"Back after lunch," Cate promised, waving.

"Take your time, Professor," Casper leaned back against the wall. "We'll be here."

Almost immediately, the lift doors had closed the door to the crèche opened and Blythe poked her head out. "I need to use the bathroom," she said.

"Then stay right there for a moment," Casper flipped the right side of her jacket open, resting her hand on something Blythe couldn't see, but which she was almost certain was a gun. All the police people in the comics always had a gun and it was either in their left armpit, which seemed a very funny place to keep a gun, or on the side of their waist. Exactly where Casper had her hand.

Walking over to the female toilets, Casper opened the door and peered inside. It was only a small facility and there were no places to hide if all the cubicles were open, which they were.

"Okay," she said, waving the young Holmes through. "Yell out if you need any help."

"I'm five," Blythe looked curious. "What would I need help with?"

"Just doing my job," Casper nodded. "In you go."

Almost immediately the door to the Ladies closed, Jules was standing beside her. "You too, huh?" Casper repeated her check on the male facilities. "Hit the orange juice at breakfast, did we?"

Before she could even re-take her seat on the stool, the door to the crèche opened a third time and a small boy with an enormous amount of dark hair and a red-and-blue striped t-shirt looked out. "What would you do if I said there was a fire in the hamster-straw?" he asked.

Casper was instantly on her feet. "There's a fire?" she demanded.

"No, not really," the striped child looked impressed at the speed of her response. "I just wanted to know what you'd do if there really was."

Taking a deep, silent breath, Casper scowled, vowing never to have children, as she returned her attention to the bathroom doors. Each one opened almost simultaneously, as the Holmes twins returned quietly to the care of the child-minders.

Once inside, Blythe and Jules looked at each other and grinned.

"Almost ten whole seconds she wasn't looking," Blythe looked down at her RSPCA watch, which she particularly liked as it had a second-hand. "That's plenty of time to leave the bathroom and walk around the corner to the stairs without being seen. _Brilliant_ ," they grinned again, turning to their best friend and almost bosom companion Derek Big-Hair. "What did you say to her?"

The boy smiled slyly. "I asked her what she would do if the hamster was on fire," he said. "You should have seen her move! She stood up so fast, she was like the _Flash_."

"And what did she say?" Jules was interested.

"She asked me if there was really a fire, an' I said no," Derek shrugged.

"Then next time you have to think of something that will be a _yes_ ," Blythe narrowed her eyes, thoughtfully. Even if it was all they could count on, ten whole seconds was all the time in the world.

###

The tiny, two-person lift only had two buttons; _Up_ and _Down_. Since she was already down, Anthea pressed the other one. The lift was clearly a throwback to the time when such devices were invented. The amount of noise and rattling going on both above her head and below her feet was scant comfort, and though she realised the building wasn't _that_ high, it wasn't the most relaxing of journeys.

After a seeming age of antique gears grinding slowly upwards into place and the clank of heavy iron chains rumbling downwards, the venerable brass cage came to a surprisingly soft halt. The doors relaxed their hold, enabling her to pull them back and exit the ornate Victorian contraption.

Stepping directly into an eighteenth-century chamber of soaring proportions, lined all along the outer wall with tall Georgian windows of great dimension, the enormity of the room caught her breath. From the magnificent Corinthian double-pillars supporting Roman-style friezes and pilasters, to the painted swags and ribbons ornamenting nearly every foot of pale yellow wall-space, Anthea realised she was in the presence of _really_ old money. Each major span on the wall held a large gilded and intricately-painted medallion depicting a fearsome, spear-laden Greek hero, clad in gold breastplate and greaves. The striking scarlet-and-gold silk carpet, clearly made specifically for this space _and_ hand woven, she noted, had kept the brilliant shimmer of newness, while the heavy-gilded frames of the dark oil portraits around the perimeter of the huge room spoke of serious people doing serious work in a very serious frame of mind for a very long time.

Right in the centre of this bravura exposition of the neo-classical, in glorious isolation at an empire desk large enough to serve in its own right as the venue for an Economic Summit of the EU, sat Mycroft Holmes, his easy demeanour suggesting his workspace had never been anything other than this. He was reading a report and looked up, "Welcome to the Bank of England."

Turning to examine the wall behind her, Anthea counted three massive fireplaces, each gilded and decorated to within an inch of their existence. They were in addition to the more modern wall-radiators that clung shyly to the other walls and between the windows.

"Love what you've done with the place," she said, looking upwards to the grandeur of the opulently embellished ceiling.

His gaze switching immediately to her face, Mycroft's eyes narrowed, his mouth turning down at the corners. "When did you last sleep?" he asked, seriously. "There's little point you being here if you're not on your toes."

"I'm ready for anything," she replied, turning away, ostensibly staring at all the architectural finery, but mainly so he couldn't see the shadows under her eyes. "I have the MI5 brief for you on Vaughn-Williams, as well as our own profile of the man," she smiled fractionally. "There are one or two discrepancies as might be expected." Tapping a few keys on her Nokia, she pressed _send_ and two small icons appeared on Mycroft's laptop.

"Your security team also want to know if you've decided to take Cate for lunch today, and, if so, where?" she asked, staring down at the tiny screen. "Like me to make a reservation at Berners?"

Resting his hands on the desk in front of him, Mycroft didn't look entirely pacified. "I'll let you know about lunch shortly," he said, impassively, returning to his report. "Remember my advice."

"I always remember your advice," she murmured. Remembering it and _taking it_ however, were two entirely different things. "Coffee?"

"I'm expecting Inspector Lestrade very shortly," he said. "If you could arrange something in the way of refreshments? He will have been working all night and would undoubtedly benefit from a stimulating beverage as you might also do," he raised his eyebrows meaningfully. "And after you have convinced everyone in this building that you are a force with which to be reckoned, you may leave on the proviso that you return to your home and sleep," he said. "I believe I will need you with all your wits at full-strength in the near future," he added. "Please do not disappoint me, and yes; lunch at Berners at one o'clock will be acceptable, thank you."

"Sir," she nodded, a genuine smile on her face. "I'll just go and deliver a resounding rendition of Henry V's _Harfleur_ speech in whatever passes for the cafeteria in this establishment, shall I?" she headed back towards the lift, turning to grin at him over her shoulder. "Can't wait to see _my_ office."

She had been gone some eight minutes when the discreet intercom on his desk buzzed a second time.

"A Detective Inspector Lestrade from Scotland Yard for you, sir," the security guard at reception sounded more than a little interested; complete strangers did not take up residence in The Old Lady as a rule, certainly not strangers who received visits from the police within an hour of taking up said residence. Speculation was already rife.

Stepping out of the antiquated lift, Greg's eyebrows lifted of their own accord as he took in the golden stateliness. "Cutting back on expenses, I see," he muttered, swivelling on his feet as his eyes performed a 360-degree circuit of the room. "Damn, Mycroft," Lestrade shook his head in mild wonder. "This place is bigger than my entire flat."

Assuming an improbably pleasant mien, the elder Holmes smiled. "Welcome, Inspector," he said. "Please sit. May I offer you some refreshments? You've had a long night."

Surprised at his surprise, Greg sank into a very comfortable leather armchair and stared at Mycroft across the vast expanse of desk. "Keeping tabs on me?" he rubbed his eyes, wearily. "What refreshments?"

At that moment, the lift doors opened again, disgorging a young man in a chef's tunic, carrying a laden tray. Behind him walked a self-possessed Anthea carrying nothing but a look of considerable smugness.

"Good morning, Inspector Lestrade," Anthea indicated the silver coffee pot steaming gently beside several domed platters. "Breakfast?" she nodded to the young man who proceeded to reveal an assortment of sandwiches and hot savouries before pouring Lestrade a cup of absolute blackness, handing it over with an expression of barely restrained excitement. _A_ _Scotland Yard Inspector_... in the _Bank._ It was like something in the cinema.

"Sir?" Anthea raised an eyebrow, ensuring a second cup was available. "Will that be all?"

"Thank you, Anthea," Mycroft nodded easily, waiting until the boy finished serving his coffee and left, though not before he stole a swift glance over his shoulder as he departed. Rumours would be through the roof by lunchtime. "Yes, that will be quite enough, I think."

"Call if you need me," she nodded briefly and smiled at Lestrade as she walked away, finding and opening the hidden door to the left of the farthest fireplace without any effort at all. Mycroft had spotted it almost as soon as he'd first entered the room, and he wondered how she had. Either a spectacular guess or she'd already found a floor plan. Clever woman.

"God, I'm starving," Greg helped himself to several of the robust-looking sandwiches, washing each bite down with a swig of hot, sweet coffee. "How did you know I hadn't had any breakfast?"

" _Magic_ , Inspector," Mycroft smiled briefly, linking his fingers on the desktop. That Lestrade's voice decreased in vitality and tone in direct correlation with the depletion of his energy level was hardly a point worth making. "And now you're actually here, I believe you would like to update me on the state of your inquiries into the …" he paused, glancing at one of the daily tabloids on the desk. " _London Park Predator_ ," he grimaced. "How very subtle," he added. "Are you here to warn me my life is in danger, or to try and arrest me?"

Stopping mid-chew, Greg wondered how Mycroft had arrived at that particular conclusion. Not that he was wrong, of course. "Tell me you know nothing about it and I'll believe you," he said, clearing his throat. If there was one thing both Holmes shared; they could be unremittingly honest when cornered.

"I assure you, Inspector ..."

"Cut the bullshit. Are you involved in this in any way? Yes or no?"

Mycroft sighed. "No, Inspector, I am as much a victim as those unfortunates with whom I happened to share physical similarities."

"Then whoever did this may not only want you dead, but they want you connected to the killings, maybe even blamed somehow, but certainly investigated for it in the meantime," Greg wolfed down a hot cheesy pastry and more coffee and relaxed as he felt his brain start to take a genuine interest in the proceedings. "In the first instance, who might want to kill you, or, in the second, implicate you in a series of nasty deaths?"

"Who indeed?" Mycroft sipped his coffee. "There are one or two individuals who may bear me a certain malice, but none, I assure you, who are in any position to orchestrate such an elaborate scenario as this."

"I'll need names."

"You cannot be serious."

"I need names from you in order to proceed with my inquiries, and yes, I am entirely serious."

"I am unable to supply you with names. Official Secrets Act, you understand." Mycroft's brief smile was equally official as he stroked the delicate cup with a fingertip.

"This is obstruction of justice and I could arrest you, you realise?" Lestrade looked back at the tray wondering if there was another cheesy pastry thing.

"This is a national security issue and you are welcome to try," Mycroft looked forbearing as he put his cup down. "Inspector, this conversation is pointless; I cannot help you in the way you desire, so please accept that you will have to continue your laudable efforts without my assistance."

"Someone may be out to kill you," Greg finished his coffee and tried to look patient. "Despite the Holmes family having been an incredible pain in my side for a number of years now, I have no wish to see any of you come to grief," he said, staring at the man sitting on the opposite side of the grandiose desk. "Is there _anything_ you can tell me that might help?"

"Not at this point," Mycroft paused and looked mildly apologetic. "Except to say that I believe these murders to be connected to a much wider operation targeting my general security and possibly that of my family," he added. "It is one of the reasons I am here," he waved a hand. "And not in Whitehall."

Lestrade sat back, unhappy with the situation but not knowing what else he could do; he had no advantage, no way to compel co-operation.

If only there was something Mycroft Holmes needed from _him_ for a change.

###

Following morning snack, the twins sat by the window overlooking one of the university squares waiting for the time to pass until they could put their plan into action. Blythe handed Jules the book she had been reading over the last few days. It was old and heavy; its covers faded and a little foxed. It smelled of mould. The title, _A History of University College of London_ , was inscribed in faded gilt along the spine.

"Why?" he asked when she handed it to him. There was always a reason.

"Mummy's university was built here a really long time ago," she spoke normally; not that anyone was close enough to listen. "While they were digging out the ground, the builders had to make lots of new tunnels for things like drains and stuff," she said. "This book has a map of where the tunnels are," she added, "and they start right underneath a place called the North Cloisters," Blythe paused, waiting for the question. There was always a question.

"And why do we need to know about the tunnels?" Jules looked around to make sure nobody could overhear them, not even by accident.

"Because they would make a much better hiding place than the underneath car park," Blythe's tone was convincing. "We don't need to go anywhere else, just go and sit in the tunnel for a few hours until it's time to come back out and show everyone that we weren't frightened being lost," she added. "We don't even have to hide very hard because I'spect nobody else knows about the tunnels except you and me," she grinned. "It's a very old book and nobody has read it for ages and ages," she said, pointing to the absence of recent library stamps in the front page and the layer of dust coating her fingertips.

It did sound an interesting alternative to going and waiting in the smelly old car park, even if they did have a book to read and he could use his new torch. If they were in one of the old tunnels, it would be like a real adventure. There might even be dead bodies and skelingtons down there. He grinned. "Where's the North Cloisters?"

Turning to look out of the window, Blythe grinned back as she pointed to a long, enclosed passageway across the quad. "Right there."

Immediately pressing his nose against the cold glass, Jules stared down at the building. It was almost directly opposite. All they'd have to do was go downstairs, skirt along the side of the yard and then head into the main door, visible from where they were sitting.

"How do we get to the tunnel when we get inside?" If the tunnels were so secret, there wouldn't be a door that everyone could see.

"We have to go down to a doorway here," Blythe opened the book and pointed to an intricate and almost bleached-out illustration where a tiny line indicated a door. She followed the plan with a finger. "An' then there's _another_ door very close by which is at the top of some stairs an' we have to go down them and along an underground passage, an' then there's another door and we're in the tunnel."

"That's a lot of doors," Jules looked doubtful. "What if they're locked?"

Grinning, Blythe held up a very odd-looking key, with a long, thick shank and an incredibly simple blade. "Uncle Sherlock said this kind of key was good for old fashioned locks. He left this behind after he unlocked the drawer in the sideboard for us, r'member?"

"Uncle Sherlock never leaves _anything_ behind _ever_ ," Jules was scandalised and shockingly impressed and clapped a hand over his mouth in frantic admiration. His sister had stolen Uncle Sherlock's magic passkey. "Can we unlock the tunnel doors with that?"

"I don't know," she looked uncertain for the first time. "But if we can't get through the doors then we'll just have to go an' sit in the car park instead."

"I think we should go now while everyone is quiet," Jules nodded. "And we have to keep Casper busy. She's very good at watching us," he peered nonchalantly around the room. There were all sorts of activities going on, but people had learned to leave the twins to themselves if they were talking. Casper was still on guard outside the door, although she looked in, every now and again. Just to be sure. She was annoyingly dedicated.

"We'll get Derek to speak to Casper again an' then we can go down the stairs to the outside while they're talking."

"I think mummy will be cross. You know we're supposed to stay where Casper can see us."

Blythe frowned. It was true. "She might be a _little_ bit cross, but then she'll be so happy to see us after we've been brave and not frightened that she won't be cross anymore," the elder twin smiled, satisfied that everything of genuine importance had been considered.

Now they lacked only a diversion.

Turning slowly, they cast a joint stare across the room at Derek Big-Hair who was in the middle of making a black robber's mask with glue and a loop of thick string. As is he could feel their examination as a physical force, he met their eyes and became suddenly very still.

Leaving the window seat, the twins sat beside their best friend.

"What?" he said. "You want me to do something, don't you?"

"We want you to show Casper your new mask," Jules nodded, as if the matter was settled. "She'll be impressed."

"But the glue's still all wet and manky," Derek frowned. "If I put it on now, it's gonna stick to my face an' won't come off. I might have to go to hospital an' have it operated off."

"Let me help you with it," ignoring their friend's fears, Blythe took the icky goopy black mess and set it in place, tying the string behind his head. "Me and Jules are going to the bathroom again, and we want you to count to ten very slowly after we've gone through the door before you come out and show Casper your mask. It might be good to get her to help you to take it off; bein' a secret agent, she's probably done lots of face operations to save people's lives."

"Casper's a secret agent?" Derek's eyes went wide. "That's _cool_."

"Remember, count to ten slowly _after_ the door closes," Blythe reminded him.

In an instant, they were both in the corridor with their guard. "We need to use the bathroom again," Jules shrugged.

"Off you go then," Casper knew exactly who had been in-and-out of the facilities all morning thus far. She watched them push open the doors to the respective facilities.

Almost immediately, the door beside her re-opened, revealing Derek Big-Hair wearing the most incredible mess.

"What on earth have you got on your face?" Casper wasn't much of an expert on kids, but she was pretty sure they shouldn't have something this disgusting stuck to their face. "Is this _glue_? Dear _God_ , boy," she shuddered, peeling the slimy, sucking mess from the child's face, dropping it into his hands and opening the door to the crèche..

"Tell the ladies you need a good wash, you mucky little squib," Casper dug out a tissue to wipe the mess from her fingers, but it was going to take a scrub to remove it all. She'd wait until the twins were back inside before using the ladies bathroom ... _the twins_ ...

As soon as the thought entered her head, she was at the door of the ladies toilets, slamming it open, Casper's heart thudded in horror; the place was _empty_. Dashing across the passage into the gents, she experienced a second wave of alarm.

Impossible though it was, the twins had gone. She had looked away for only a matter of seconds, and even though she had been dealing with the boy, nobody had passed. They had not been abducted; therefore, they had used her temporary distraction to make a break for it.

Forgetting all about washing her hands, Casper hurtled down to the end of the passage and turned left. There was only one way out of this particular space, and that was via the stairwell. Wrenching the heavy fire-door back, she peered down the concrete steps.

There was no sign of the twins, there was no sound of them either.

_They had gone._

Plunging through the doorway, Casper threw herself downwards, taking the steps two at a time.


	6. Chapter 6

_Photographus Interruptus – Casper Does Her Thing – The London Bore._

#

#

Feeling rather foolish, Cate did as she was asked, and licked her lips.

Beginning to get an idea that Dominic, regardless of his burgeoning reputation for quality photography, was just a little too precious in his ideas, she nevertheless smiled gamely and soldiered on through everything he asked of her. She felt stiff, uncomfortable and incredibly bored.

There had been the various but fairly straightforward passport-type shots of head-and-shoulders, both full-face and off-profile. Dominic had rushed to the end of those and, after picking through the meagre wardrobe she had brought with her, had pulled out the sheer white blouse, the black skirt suit and the black stilettoes, waving her away to the changing room which he did something technical and photographic with the studio.

On her return, Cate was surprised to see a bunch of different cameras on tripods and that the lighting layout had changed. It had been fairly normal before, if somewhat focused through several odd-looking halogen lights at different angles, some wearing a small, silvered umbrella, while others were dressed in square-shaped opaque boxes, but nearly all of them were pointing now towards a simple _chaise-longue_ , in front of a digitised library backdrop. It wasn't half as nice at the library at Deepdene, but Cate felt that silence might be the best tactic if she wanted to get out of here sooner rather than later.

Appraising her as she walked back to the set, the photographer smiled, lifting his eyebrows. "You don't look like any of the professors I ever had at uni," he grinned. "Mine were all around a hundred-and-ninety and looked as if they remembered the Crimea."

"It takes all sorts in a university," Cate stood, looking at the _chaise_. "You want me to sit here?"

"Yes please," Dominic ushered her through the ring of lights and cameras. "Just sit any way that feels comfortable for you ... would you like a glass of wine?"

 _Wine?_ It wasn't even midday.

"Thank you, no," Cate sighed. "Can we just get on with this, please?"

"I just thought it might help you relax," the young man frowned. "You clearly not enjoying having your photo taken," he paused. "Why ever not?"

Cate looked pensive. "I'm sorry, but I have a number of other things to do and frankly, I'm not a photogenic subject and I've never considered myself good in any of the photos I've ever had, so there's really no need for either of us to waste our time ... I'm only here because my publisher wants to update my cover photos."

"You've never had a decent photograph?"

"There were some at my wedding, but that was mainly because my husband is tall, dark and splendid and all I had to do was stand there and look half-way normal," she shook her head. "I'm really not a good subject."

"Well, that's a load of rubbish," the young man shook his head too. "Apart from looking utterly knockout in that suit, you could never be only half-way normal if you tried," he smiled, his hands on his hips. "Now do whatever makes you the most comfortable."

"Really? The most comfortable?" Cate looked at him from under raised eyebrows.

"Go for it," Dominic folded his arms and grinned.

"Right then," Cate pulled off her shoes and put them on the seat beside her. Then she undid the buttons of her jacket until it hung open and pushed up both sleeves to her elbows. Feeling a lot freer, she sat in the middle of the chaise, tucking her feet up underneath her. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and relaxed for the first time since she'd arrived. She smiled faintly and opened her eyes to see him standing behind a digital video camera. He had filmed her from the moment she stood up to kick off her shoes.

"I bet I could get some good stills just from that little exercise," he said, looking at her over the top of the camera. "But now that you're actually looking a bit less fraught, why don't you just imagine the camera is one of your students and tell it something?"

"You want me to talk to your camera?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"What should I talk about?" she wasn't sure quite what he had in mind.

"How about explaining the plot to your new book?" Dominic was already doing things behind a couple of the tripods, as well as adjusting the angle of some of the silvery umbrellas.

Taking a deep breath, Cate, nodded. "Okay," she looked as the camera in front of him and began a brief explanation of the stories and why she had decided to write them the way she was.

"And why does this make them better than the others?" Dominic was moving around her, moving between the several cameras he had set up, his fingers clicking off shots on a regular tempo.

"It doesn't make it better than the others but it's _different_ ..."

"How different? Doesn't sound all that different to me."

"Oh, but it _is_ different ... the protagonists alone are all ..." and she launched into a much more detailed and enthusiastic account of the ten stories and how they interlinked in terms of both plot and history. She only stopped when she saw him standing still, a huge grin all over his face.

"If you could only see yourself now," he laughed quietly. "You look brilliant."

Taking stock of her situation, Cate realised she was actually kneeling up on the padded chaise, One hand out to one side while the other was pointing a shoe at the camera.

"You photographed me like this?" she sank back down, lowering both hands. "I must look an idiot."

"You look amazing and impassioned and vibrant and exciting," Dominic walked closer. "I got some fabulous shots, honest."

"Oh well," Cate put her shoes on, shrugging. "You're the expert. I'll wait and see what the publishers say."

"I'll send you some proofs before they go to your publisher, and if you really don't like them, we'll do another set, no charge."

About to tease the young man that he should be more careful with his promises or he'd be bankrupt within the month, when her phone rang.

"Excuse me a moment," she said, reaching across for her bag and looking at the caller ID. It was Mycroft; clearly he'd decided that lunch was a go.

"Hello, Darling," Cate smiled into the air, picturing his face. "Perfect timing."

"Cate my love," Mycroft's voice sounded tense. For him, _unusually_ tense. In an instant, all her alarms were ringing, her heart pounding hard even before he had begun to say his next words. Something dreadful had happened.

"What?" she gasped. "What is it?"

"Darling, don't panic; I'm calling because I'm afraid lunch is off. The twins have left the crèche; nobody yet knows where they went. Casper radioed in that she had gone after them."

"And _what_?" Cate felt her heart leap in her chest, her hand pressed against her throat to stop it from escaping and flying away. "What happened? Were they taken? Where are they now?"

"We don't know; Casper's signal cut out for some reason, but they can't have gone very far. Inspector Lestrade was with me when the call came through, and we're both heading to the university right now."

"Swing by Gosfield Street and pick me up," Cate was already pulling her shoes back on. "You do not go there without me," she was adamant.

"We're already close, Cate," Mycroft's voice was steady and deadly calm. "Be ready outside the studio within the minute."

"Yes, _hurry_ ," she ended the call, turning to stare at the photographer. "I'm sorry, there's a problem with my children, I have to go," she rummaged through her bag, hauling out the jeans and t-shirt and sneakers she'd worn to get to the studio. "I'll pick up the rest of my stuff later," Cate was already racing towards the door.

"Hey, yeah," Dominic raised his hand in farewell. "No problem; take it easy ..."

But she had already gone.

Half-way down the several flights of stairs to street-level, Cate met her own security on his way up. The young man known to her as _Provost_ looked agitated but not alarmed. "Are you okay?" his intelligent eyes sought hers, his hands ready to catch her if she looked like she might fall.

"Did you hear?" she demanded, not stopping her headlong rush downwards.

"Yes, got the Intel before you did; been tracking Casper ever since."

"Where is she?" Cate stopped at the door to the street, turning to him. "Have you heard anything since she was cut off?"

"Not yet, but we're triangulating her last position," Provost paused, seeing the tight cast of worry across Cate's face. "Don't panic," he smiled reassuringly. "We'll get them back, wherever they are."

Standing on the pavement and hoping he was right, Cate realised she was still in her high-heels, which would make swift movement impossible. She'd have to change into her other clothes quickly.

The sleek black curve of the Jaguar surged up the street, pulling to a halt. Greg Lestrade got out on the side closest and held the door for her. Clambering in past him, all Cate could see was Mycroft's face. Though pale, it was tightly controlled.

 _Too controlled_. She knew the signs now. The greater the inner turmoil, the less anything touched the surface. Inside, he was _raging_.

"Anything new?" she asked anxiously, as Lestrade reclaimed his seat. Thankfully, the car was amply wide in the back. Just as well.

"Nothing, darling," Mycroft's eyes burned actinic blue. "However, I'm sure everything will be fine. Casper is one of my best."

"Yes, she is," piling her spare clothes in her husband's lap, Cate kicked off her shiny black stilettoes and started pulling off her jacket. "But it's not her I'm worried about."

"What _are_ you doing?" Mycroft watched, momentarily distracted as his wife began to disrobe.

"Yes, what _are_ you doing?" Greg's eyebrows reached for his hairline.

"I'm changing clothes, so don't look," she muttered, unzipping the skirt of her suit at the same time Greg realised what she was doing and clapped both hands over his face.

"You couldn't wait to do this at the university?" the Londoner muttered behind tightly closed and covered eyes. Despite not seeing anything, he wasn't deaf, and the back seat of the Jaguar wasn't _that_ spacious.

"No time to waste," she wriggled out of her skirt and pulled off her tights, the silken swishing combined with the way Cate's body was moving against him left Lestrade in no doubt about the state of her undress.

Mycroft's face was still expressionless, but his eyebrow twitched at his wife's state as she abandoned her smart clothing in the footwell of the car. In silence, he handed over her jeans which she pulled up and zipped in the same movement, dragging the t-shirt over her head in the next second.

"I'm decent," she said for Greg's benefit. "You won't turn into a pillar of salt now," she added, leaning down to shove her feet into the trainers.

Relaxing his hands, Lestrade turned to face them both. "I know you'll want to get involved," he said. "But you need to stay out of the way when we get there," Greg looked first at Cate and then above her head at Mycroft. "If this is deemed to be a police matter and my people get involved, then you need to allow us to do our jobs: we _are_ the professionals in this kind of thing."

"Inspector, _my_ people have been there throughout," Mycroft tone was polite but hardly co-operative. "I will do what I deem necessary and if this also becomes a police matter then I suggest you ensure _your_ people follow a course on non-intervention."

"You expect me to tell my lot to leave it to your lot?"

"Succinctly put, Inspector," Mycroft found Cate's hand with his own, meeting her eyes.

"Where did they go, Mycroft?" her throat was dry and her voice cracked a little. "Where are they? Did someone take them?"

Unable to say any of the things his wife wanted to hear, he pressed her hand to his chest and wrapped a long arm around her shoulders.

"We'll find them, my love, we will. I promise."

Lestrade's mouth tightened as he stared straight ahead hoping the elder Holmes would not be proved wrong.

###

Rushing down the narrow concrete stairs as a speed that would have the health and safety people throwing up their hands in despair, Casper flung herself into each flight with little consideration of her own safety. The only thought in her mind was the location and safety of the twins. Had they gone willingly? Had they been abducted? Even though the fire-door at the top of the stairwell could only be opened from the _inside_ , it might have been possible for anyone really determined to find a way to open it from the stairs side.

_If only she had checked that door more frequently._

_If only she had kept her eyes on the twins._

If only ... if only...

Casper realised she could ill-afford the distraction as her leading foot slipped down one hard step to the next, barking her ankle hard enough against the concrete to bring tears of pain to her eyes. Gritting her teeth, she slowed a little but continued at speed down the stairs, reaching the exit at the bottom only seconds later. If the twins had come down this way, they would have to have been very quick; they could not have more than a minute's head start.

Pausing for a second to catch her breath, she immediately contacted Base, updating everyone on the situation, allowing them time to pinpoint her location by transmission and be aware that she was in pursuit of the Holmes children.

"No immediate evidence of abduction or force," she spoke as evenly as she could though her chest was heaving. "No signs of force or physical resistance," she added, though what two small children could offer by way of resistance couldn't amount to much even if they tried.

At least there were no signs of violence; no blood or ripped clothing. Nor had she heard screams or anything, in fact, that might suggest the twins had been unwillingly taken. Mind you, one small injection of a sedative and they would both be asleep like the babies they still were.

But if they had left by themselves ... if this was simply an _escapade_ ... where would they have gone? Stepping through the door at the bottom of the stairwell, she paused again, looking all around, her eyes wide and searching for the slightest clue, her ears pricked for the faintest sound that might indicate the direction in which the twins had headed.

There was nothing.

In which case, she'd have to use a bit of logic to work out the next step.

If they had been taken, it would have needed at least two adults to each carry away a small child in their arms. Nobody, either on foot or in a vehicle could exit through the main gate without somebody noticing and two drugged children would be hard to miss. Every other avenue required movement through at least some part of the main campus.

Casper looked around again, marking every doorway she could see against the map of the campus she had memorised and kept in her head. Other than the way she'd just come and the main gate, there were only four entrances within reasonable reach. The Slade Building, two doorways into the North Cloister and the main entrance into the Wilkins building.

Two children alone or being carried by adults wouldn't want to go to the fine arts centre – far too many CCTV cameras in there. Nor would anyone who knew the place head for Wilkins – the molecular biology block had only just bumped up its own security following recent demonstrations against their stem-cell research.

This only left the North Cloisters.

In the second the knowledge reached her awareness, Casper was charging across the quad for the closest entranceway into the long, marble-floored structure, its dual rows of floor-to-ceiling windows casting bright slants of sunlight across the shining stone floor.

But it was empty; not a soul anywhere.

Looking desperately around for any sign the twins had been here, she walked up the long structure, checking each door and window in case there was some indication children had been there. As she walked, Casper noticed a door at the far end on the gallery wasn't completely closed. Why Blythe and Jules would have come over here and then gone through a strange door was anyone's guess, but since she had nothing better to go on, she powered across the marble tiles, sliding to an inelegant halt by the door. Pulling out her SIG 225, Casper held it close to her head as she leaned into the fractionally open door straining to hear sounds from the other side.

Still nothing, but she had committed herself now and was determined not to stop until she had found them. The twins would not be harmed on her watch, not if she had any say.

Yanking open the old brass door handle, she found herself in a small annex on the far side of the cloister itself, filled with unwanted furniture and stacked up tables: the place was obviously being used as a storage room.

There were a few narrow windows along the wall opposite the door, but they were cobwebby and the latches she could see even from where she stood, had been painted over.

Walking slowly to the far side of the dusty storeroom, her SIG held out and downwards in front of her, Casper checked for any sign of recent movement or disturbance, but again, there was nothing.

And then a small absence of dust caught her eye.

Looking more closely at the lowest chair in a stacked pile, the kind of plastic seat that might be used for an outdoor concert, she saw that the uniform layer of dust had been streaked clean by the very recent passage of something small. An even closer inspection showed the small something to be a handprint.

The children had been in here and one of them had brushed against the chair.

Immediately, Casper felt an upsurge of adrenalin as she searched around the room, gun now at the ready and level with her chest. Why would they have been here? Did they come of their own volition or were they being forced? Assuming they _had_ been here, where were they now? There were very few places anyone could hide, even if they were as small as the twins.

Apart from the pillars of stacked and dusty outdoor seating, there were a number of round table tops leaning up against the walls, several tall steel cabinets, a couple of old bookshelves ... and nothing else. There was nothing in or behind which the twins could hide; nothing big enough to cover...

 _Wait_.

Casper found herself staring at the old empty bookshelf in the corner. There was something different about it ... Stepping slowly closer she saw that it wasn't quite flush up against the wall; a sliver of a gap, barely wide enough for a child to slide through ... _a child could slide through_.

She suddenly realised this was where the twins had gone. There had to be another door behind the bookshelf. Holstering her pistol, she pushed her way towards the corner, shoving piles of chairs aside with her foot, clawing a path through the detritus of years. Reaching the bookshelf, she checked behind it, only to find another door. It was closed, but it had to be where the kids had gone.

Speaking into her shoulder-mike, she explained to Base where she was and what she was doing; they advised her assistance was on the way and that she should use her own initiative. Damn right she was going to use her initiative.

Giving up on moving the bookshelf away from the door in a reasonable manner, feeling entirely unreasonable by now, she simply grabbed one of the rear edges and pulled, putting her entire weight into it. The empty shelves toppled easily forward onto a pile of table-trestles with a resounding crash, bits of wood cracking and splintering as the dust flew everywhere.

But Casper's entire attention was on the door. Praying it wasn't locked, she tried the stiff handle.

It was a solid as a rock.

How had the twins come through this way if the door was locked? Peering down to look at the keyhole, she noted it was an old lock that took a large key. Looking even more closely, she saw several streaks in the dust around the handle.

Somehow, someone had gone through this door, and not long ago, either.

Standing back, wondering if she might be able to kick the lock open, Casper realised it was hopeless; the doors in this part of the university were as ancient as the marble floors and just as solid. Frantically looking around to see if there were anything she might be able to use to level the door open, Casper's eyes lighted on the door hinges.

Great big old _rusty_ iron hinges.

In an instant, she had picked up a heavy steel base of an outdoor umbrella and had whacked the top hinge into rusting flakes. Another good couple of thumps and the thing disintegrated. Turning her attention to the remaining two lower hinges, her furious energy had them shattered with a few additional blows. As the door sagged fractionally away from the jamb, held up only by the closed lock itself, Casper put her shoulder to the tall slab of solid wood and shoved her way past.

 _Stairs_. There were stairs here. Old iron ones. _Jesus Christ_.

The stairwell beyond the old door was dimly lit by dirty skylights; just sufficient illumination for her to see where to put her feet, to see, in fact, where other feet had been quite recently. Fishing out a torch barely larger than a marker-pen, Casper ran down the substantial metal staircase into a much darker passageway. She hesitated. The passage went in both directions. Which way to choose?

Scanning the floor for several yards in either direction for recent signs of traffic, there were no visible scuff-marks on the stone-slabbed floor and no indications the twins had gone either way. She had to make a decision.

 _Left_. She would go left, but if she hadn't found anything to suggest she was on the right path within five minutes, she'd double-back and try the opposite direction. Trying to work out where she was, Casper guessed she might be beneath the Physics building, one of the oldest buildings on campus. This was the original architecture of the university and this passage might lead anywhere.

Having decided on her course of action, she headed left at a speed that covered the ground quickly, but still gave her enough time to observe things as she passed them by, her small torch casting speculative shadows before her. There were no other doors yet, no way for anyone to diverge from this single walkway. There was almost no light now, and she slowed her pace slightly, unwilling to miss something in the dark.

 _A door_. An old, brass-handled door, heavy with iron rivets and apparently as solid as the stone floor around it. Casper knew if this one were locked, she had almost no chance of breaking through: it looked almost biblical in its weightiness.

Taking a deep breath, she put her hand to the discoloured metal and twisted. It resisted for a moment and then turned unexpectedly softly in her fingers. Just as she was about to open it and step through, a heavy trickle of brick-dust floated down to her shoulder.

Without releasing her hand, she squinted up to find the source, only to observe several of the bricks above the lintel of the door were in a very poor state, almost crumbling from what she could see. The slightest movement and they might be ready to come down. Clearly, if the twins had come through here, their movement had increased the disintegration in a big way. Casper tightened her grasp around the handle and pushed gently, the door stuck, juddering, causing another small landslide of brick-dust to cloud the air.

If the twins were anywhere, they were behind this door, she was sure of it. Trying to relay her position back to base, all Casper got was static; the ground down here must be too heavy with London clay to permit transmission. This meant since she had come down into the tunnel, they wouldn't be able to track her position, either. She was quite alone.

And now she had another decision to make. Did she want to attempt the door and risk the consequences? Looking closely around the entire frame of the old door she could see that most of the surrounding bricks and mortar were in pretty bad shape; there was no way of knowing what would happen if she pushed through.

She paused, thinking.

" _Jules! Blythe!_ Can you hear me? It's Casper. If you can hear me, I need to know before I try and open this door."

Almost immediately she heard muffled yells from the other side. _The Twins!_

With a swift twist of her hand and a shove of her shoulder, the door opened and she was through, but not before a terrible crack sounded by her ear as she stepped into an even greater darkness. Her eyes distracted by the beam of a torch shining directly up into her face from somewhere below, as a wave of cold moisture chilled her skin. Casper was momentarily blinded and then distracted as all the brickwork above the door gave way, the door itself falling inward, catching her painfully on the shoulder as the small iron platform she was on also gave way beneath her feet and she fell.

There was a searing pain in her arm and another at her right temple and then everything went dark.

###

They were speaking very quietly so as not to alarm the rest of the children still in the crèche, waiting for their parents. Cate had managed to persuade both Mycroft and Greg that she was the best one to begin asking the questions; at least until they were sure it was more than just the twins running off.

Both men had agreed, although Lestrade had only done so on the proviso he was able to hear the questions and responses and at the first sign it was abduction, he'd alert the squad in the same second. Mycroft said nothing, but stepped aside and pulled out his phone on which he spoke softly and rapidly.

"Did they say they wanted to leave or that they were going to meet anyone?" Cate maintained an even tone in her voice but it was hard; every instinct screamed at her to start a physical hunt for them herself.

"Not a thing," the senior childcare worker was pale and shocked. No child had ever wandered off before, not like this. And how could they have? They even had their own bodyguard. How on earth had they managed it? "They've been sitting with their heads together most of the morning, talking," she added, crossing her arms tightly across her chest. "Apart from asking lots of questions that are usually very difficult to answer, they've never really been any trouble at all, and they've been coming here for long enough that we would know if they were upset about anything, and they weren't upset in the least; the opposite, if anything."

"Were they talking with any of the other children before they disappeared?" Cate was grasping for straws now. Not that she really believed anything bad had happened, but since Casper had vanished as well...

"Only Derek Lattimore ... he's over there with Pauline now," she said, pointing to mother and son, clearly related if nothing else than by the obvious inheritance of abundant hair.

"Hi, Pauline," Cate walked across closely followed by Greg Lestrade. So far, neither of them had heard anything that suggested this was anything for the Serious Crimes division, but they had only just arrived.

The woman met her eyes, smiling sympathetically. "Any word?"

"Nothing yet," Cate smiled tightly. "Do you mind if I ask Derek about this morning?"

Sliding a hand into her son's fingers, Pauline Lattimore made a face at her son. "What have you got on your hand?" she asked. "Glue?"

Derek nodded, uncertainly.

"Were you making things with Blythe and Jules this morning with glue, Derek?" Cate sat down beside him while Greg listened.

The boy shook his head, acutely aware that someone was going to be in a lot of trouble and he had no wish for it to be him.

"Did you talk to them about what they were going to do this morning?" she asked.

"Not really," Derek shook his head again. "They said Casper would like to see my new mask," he added, brightly.

"And did you show her the mask?" Cate forced her voice to be soft.

Smiling, Derek nodded. "It got stuck to my face an' I thought she might have to use some special secret agent trick to get it off," he grinned. "It was really gross and squishy."

About to try another question, Cate felt the brush of a coat against her shoulder as another body swept into the conversation. She vaguely heard Greg's faint groan.

"Hello Derek," Sherlock's tall frame brought a certain dynamism to the conversation as he stared at the boy.

Turning to Pauline, Cate's wan expression appealed for a little forbearance. "My brother-in-law, Sherlock Holmes," she said. "He's a detective."

"May I question your son, Professor Lattimore?" Sherlock was obviously attempting good behaviour, given that Cate was right beside him and was in an unpredictable mood.

"Of course," Pauline knew how close Derek was to the twins; if anyone had any idea of what they were up to, it would probably be her son. "Answer Mr Holmes' questions, Derek, there's a good boy."

Nodding an acknowledgement, Sherlock turned back to the child.

"Are you _Uncle_ Sherlock?" Derek's eyes had grown wide at the mention of the tall man's name. "The one who catches all the bad people?"

"I _am_ Blythe and Jules' uncle and I always catch the bad people, but right now I want to know where they've gone. Do you know where they have gone, Derek?"

The child shook his head.

"They asked you to do something, didn't they?" Sherlock knew this for a fact. The twins were always asking people to do things, although he had no idea where they got the habit from. "What did they want you to do?"

"They wanted me to speak to Casper and show her my mask."

"And that was all? Nothing else? You didn't get Casper to come inside the room for a little while?"

Derek shook his head again.

Sherlock paused. This was going nowhere.

"You like Blythe, don't you Derek?" he said. "You really like her?"

His eyes widening a little more, Derek nodded, but there was a slowness in the movement as if he wasn't sure what was the right answer to give.

"In fact, you'd like her to be your girlfriend, wouldn't you?"

Cate shot him a curious look. The children were only five.

Suddenly finding his sticky fingers to be very interesting, Derek looked down, an intent expression on his face. "She won't never be my girlfriend because she's too clever, but she's my friend an' so is Jules."

"And you want your friends to be safe, don't you, Derek?" Sherlock's voice was soft and persuasive. "You wouldn't want them to be in trouble, especially not Blythe?"

Shaking his head more firmly this time, the boy met the tall man's gaze. "They said they wanted me to talk to Casper while they both went to the bathroom."

"And what were they doing before all of this happened?" Sherlock held the child's eyes; he needed to be sure he was getting every grain of truth.

Pointing a finger, Derek indicated the window seat. "They were over there looking at a book for a long time."

It took him only a few strides to reach the window and find the slim blue book tucked down one side of the seat cushions. _A History of University College of London_ _._ Flipping swiftly though the pages, Sherlock came to one very near the front that was missing. Lifting the opened book to the light, he saw that it had been ripped cleanly out, and recently too, judging by the still-crumbling fibers as the edge of the tear. Turning to the table of contents at the front, he saw the missing page was a map of the original university buildings. _A map_ _._

Nodding to Lestrade who was arriving at the conclusion this whole thing might just have been the Holmes children following in the footsteps of their uncle and becoming an enormous pain in the arse, rather than a criminal act, he patted Cate's shoulder and walked over to Mycroft's side.

There was a brief, muttered conversation.

"It appears my children have taken it upon themselves to do a little exploring of the old university buildings, Inspector," Mycroft's words were smooth but his voice was tight as Cate joined them, leaning up against him for comfort and support. Mycroft's hand found hers.

"I need a map of the university buildings," Sherlock stipulated. "An old map, showing all the entrances and exits."

"There's a huge one on the wall outside the Library," Cate was already stepping towards the door. "I'll show you."

"No need for you to stay, in that case, Inspector," Mycroft turned to face the Londoner. "No need to devote any more of your valuable time to this matter, but thank you for your ..."

"If you think for even a second that I'm going to take off while there's a couple of little kids gone missing, then you're a bloody fool," Lestrade felt angry. "Doesn't matter whose children they are, and it doesn't matter whether I'm on or off-duty, but while I'm here, I'll stay, if you don't mind, until I know they're back home and safe."

Examining the point of one shoe, Mycroft made a small moue before he looked up, his face clearing. "And which are you?" he asked. "On or off duty?"

"Whatever I bloody well need to be," the silver-haired Londoner scowled, still unappeased. "Now stop pissing me about and tell me what's going on and what you're planning to do."

Staring into a pair of dark hazel eyes almost level with his own, Mycroft resigned himself to accepting the police's involvement in what was now almost certainly a family affair. He sighed softly.

"At this point, it looks like Blythe and Jules have gone off on a trek of the university without oversight," he began. "One of my people who was providing additional security for my family at the moment has also disappeared and we are unable to raise her either by phone or radio contact; we do not know where either she or the children are at the present moment, although Sherlock is certain they are still within the campus grounds."

"What additional security for your family?" Lestrade narrowed his eyes. _"_ _Why?_ " he asked. "Why _now_ _?_ "

Mycroft's eyelids drooped closed for a moment; his jaw tightened. "Including the deaths of my unfortunate look-alikes, there have been an increasing series of disturbing events aimed at me ... and my family. There is an emerging scenario, however there have been so many incidents from such a wide range of sources, including the murders, it has been difficult to see the wood for the trees, Inspector," the elder Holmes looked dark. "And now the twins have exacerbated the situation, potentially to a dangerous level."

"Someone may genuinely be after Cate and the kids?" Lestrade got angry again. After all the trials and tribulations he had been through with the whole lot of them, it was as if he had a personal investment in keeping the family safe. "And you didn't think I'd want to know?"

Mycroft was saved from answering as Cate and Sherlock rushed back in.

"Based on the last reported position of your missing security guard, we believe they've decided to go down to the tunnels under the old university buildings," Sherlock slid a supportive arm around Cate's shoulders, a gesture not unnoticed by either his brother or Lestrade. What was he going to say next?

"Then we can find them and bring them out, surely?" Greg frowned, unsure why Sherlock was sounding so gloomy. "They can't have gone very far."

"The tunnels here are connected to the Thames Ring Mains, recently connected to the new Stoke Newington works," the younger Holmes held Cate closer as Mycroft stiffened, his face growing pale, clearly understanding the situation. He took Cate's hand in his own so that she was braced between the two of them.

Shaking his head, Lestrade still didn't understand the problem. " _And?_ "

"The tunnels are all part of the old London Main sewers," Sherlock spoke carefully, looking between Cate and his brother. "They're still on the old bore system."

As understanding dawned, Greg felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. "Then we'd better get a move on," he said, stepping towards the door.

Cate was still unclear. She only knew everyone looked incredibly tense. "What is it?" she asked, not really wanting an answer. "What is nobody telling me?"

"At some point in the next twenty-four hours, the tunnels beneath the university are going to experience the London bore, my darling," Mycroft spoke very gently. "They're going to flood."


	7. Chapter 7

_A Call for Doctor Watson – North or South? – Taking the Helm – The Countdown Begins – An Internal Threat – Down by the Fleet – Into the Depths – Anthea Ascendant – Exhaustion._

#

#

It was right on lunchtime when John's phone told him Sherlock was calling. The doctor had been down at the surgery, filling in for an emergency absence; he'd only agreed to be there for a half-day and was already preparing to leave.

"Hi," he said. "Don't worry; I know we need bread and biscuits. I'll pick some up on the way home."

"I need your help, John," Sherlock's voice was calm but contained a note of ... _something_. Something strange.

"What is it?" the soldier inside, but never very far inside, straightened to attention. Something was definitely Up. "What's gone wrong?"

"Blythe and Jules are lost," Sherlock went to the crux of the matter. "I have reason to believe they've found a way down into the tunnels beneath the old university buildings in Gower Street; tunnels that link into the sewer network."

" _Christ_ ," John shook his head. "How the bloody hell did they get down there? And where are you, anyway?"

"I'm at the university now with Mycroft and Cate. Lestrade is here as well. Mycroft is trying to keep this from becoming a police operation, but there are complications."

Already half-way into his jacket, John tucked the phone between his neck and shoulder as he talked and dressed. "What complications?" he grunted, fighting with an unco-operative sleeve.

"The twin's designated security has also vanished; last contact with her was that she was chasing them before her transmissions were cut off."

"That's one complication," John wrestled his way into his coat and stood, waiting. "What are the others?"

"The sewers beneath the university are still connected to the old London Ring Mains," he paused. "The London Bore is going to flood the lower tunnels sometime in the next twenty-four hours and we have no clear idea of the twins' location."

For a second, John stood motionless, his thoughts whirling as he imagined the two five-year-olds caught up in the maelstrom that was the river's bore; despite the Thames barrier, high-tides still saw the regular appearance of the tidal wave. Out in the open river, unrestrained and with plenty of room, it was nothing; a few fat ripples of water racing upstream as the incoming surge made its presence felt.

But anything pouring through the storm drains and sewers would be caged and confined; the enormous power of the waves coming straight in from the North Sea. The children wouldn't stand a chance.

"What do you want me to do?" he demanded, relaxing his clenched fingers from an unrealised fist.

"Mycroft's people are checking with the Admiralty's Hydrographic Office to confirm tide-times and size; that'll give us a clearer idea of the leeway we have. Come to the Gower Street campus; between you, me and Lestrade, we should be able to cover the most likely places the children might be; if one of us misses them, the others hopefully won't."

"On my way," after grabbing a few things from the surgery stores, John jogged through Reception, apologising over his shoulder as he shot through the door, hailing a cab as soon as his feet hit the pavement. Amazingly, one was just passing and pulled into the kerb.

"Perfect timing, mate," the cabbie grinned as the blonde man climbed into the back. "Where to?"

"University College in Gower Street please. Quick as you can," sliding back into the well-upholstered seat, John hoped the twins' rescue would be equally fortuitous.

###

As returning consciousness brought her to the surface of perception, Casper experienced three sensations in rapid succession. Her head throbbed as if someone was having at her with a slightly padded cosh; her left arm was on fire and her jeans were soaking wet and icy cold.

There was also something soft and chilly across her forehead; it dripped wet down the side of her face. She risked opening her eyes.

She was lying on her back in some dark tunnel-like place and there were piles of broken masonry and old bricks tumbled around her. A haze of dust was backlit by the beam of a torch.

The Holmes twins were staring down at her with real concern on their faces.

"Are you going to die?" Jules sounded intrigued. "Because you're too big for us to carry, if you are."

Blinking several times, Casper concluded that, all things considered, she wasn't dead, nor did she actually feel on the brink of an early demise, although she was definitely on the woozy side.

"No, I don't think I can be bothered dying right now," she croaked, trying to push herself up, crying out in agony as she attempted to put weight on her left arm.

That didn't feel too good.

Using her right arm only, she dragged herself more or less upright, taking stock of her situation as she did. The wet drippy thing on her forehead turned out to be a very soggy paper serviette. "Mummy puts cold compresses on our heads when we're not feeling well," Jules sounded authoritative. "We thought it might make you feel better as well."

"Nice try, guys," Casper groaned as she forced herself to move, but her entire left side felt like it was nailed to the floor.

"Shine your torch down here a minute," she instructed, pointing to where it hurt the most. After a fairly rapid assessment, she almost wished she hadn't asked. He left arm was covered in blood from the elbow down; her hand was covered in the sticky stuff, thankfully, it was actually _sticky_ , which meant it had stopped bleeding quite so badly. Looking higher, she noted a small tourniquet tied fast around her biceps. It was a piece of bright yellow lanyard, they type used to loop through the hasp of climbing equipment so as not to lose it if dropped.

Feeling a little fuzzy, she stared at the yellow band around her upper arm. "Where did this come from?"

"It came off of the torch that Uncle John got me for our birthday," Jules sounded rather smug.

"An' I remembered one of mummy's books on what to do in an accident if people didn't stop bleeding everywhere was to tie a piece of rope above the bleeding bit, only we didn't have any rope."

"This is fine," Casper tried to lift her arm, only just managing to handle the wave of nausea that swept over her as she did.

"I don't think arms are meant to bend that way," Jules voice was analytical as he kept his torch on Casper's left side.

Unable to manage speech for a moment, Casper didn't move when she felt Blythe kneel down beside her. "Would you like some water?" she said, holding out a small bottle.

Grasping it thankfully, Casper slaked her thirst, although the bottle was already half-empty. "Thanks, Blythe," she mumbled. "Any idea how long I was uncon ... asleep?"

"We're not babies, you know," Jules commented as they looked attentive. "We know what _unconscious_ means."

"Seven minutes and forty-three seconds," Blythe held out her wrist on which Casper could just make out a small watch. "But you've been waking up for at least a minute, so I don't think the last one counts."

The child was so serious that, despite everything, Casper felt herself smile. "We have to get out of here," she said. "Which means I have to get up. Are there any bricks or concrete on my feet; I can't see."

"There was, after the door fell in and all the wall fell in on top of it, but you had mostly rolled away by then," Blythe shuffled back, making room.

"Did you see where I dropped my torch? I know I had it when I came through the doorway."

"Here," Jules handed her the slender bit of technology. "It's a really cool torch," he sounded a little envious. "Is it a secret agent torch?"

Smiling again, Casper managed to grasp the black rubber case in her right hand. As soon as she depressed the 'on' button, a slice of white light shot across to the far wall of the tunnel. Well, that was one thing to the good. "Yes, it's a secret agent torch," she agreed, blinking dust from her eyes.

"We're not going to be able to go back the way we came," Blythe spoke very matter-of-factly. "The door's not there anymore."

Taking a slow, deep breath, Casper pulled her legs closer and to one side. As carefully as she could, trying not to touch her left arm at all, she eased onto her knees. Even that small effort made her head spin and her eyes blur. Sucking down a few more deep breaths, her head and vision cleared and she straightened up, turning a little to shine the narrow beam of her torch on the doorway.

Which was no longer there. Nor was the wall itself, or, by the looks of things, half of the passageway behind it. All she could see was a massive pile of rubble, completely obliterating the entranceway into the tunnel. No chance of digging through it, which also meant that waiting for help from the other side was not a practical idea either.

Which meant they had to find another way out.

Her radio contact with Base was down; all she got was static. This meant there would be no phone-reception either. It complicated things. Having no idea where they were anymore, she couldn't work out which direction: up the tunnel or down, would be the safest way to go, Casper realised she needed to find her bearings. Just as well she was in possession of a neat little compass.

Problem was, it was on the underside of her watch, which was still clasped around her left wrist. The left wrist she particularly did not want to look at, let alone touch.

"I need you to hold your torch on my watch so I can get it off," she directed Jules. "Just hold the light steady for a minute, can you?"

"It's very icky," he observed as both twins craned their heads to watch her remove the watch from the streaks of glistening red.

"Then close your eyes and don't look," Casper didn't want either of them having nightmares after this. She winced as the watch tugged her arm.

"It's not _that_ icky," Blythe scoffed. "Uncle Sherlock shows us lots of really good stuff."

Resolving not to imagine what kind of person Uncle Sherlock was, Casper breathed a little easier when the watch came away in her fingers. It was indeed on the icky side.

"Can one of you rinse it in the water and bring it back, please?"

She had noted the small but constant stream of water running down the centre of the tunnel; it was the reason her jeans were soaking wet. Casper had a pretty good idea this tunnel was somehow connected to the old London sewer system, and yet the air down here smelled clean. Damp and chilly, yes, but not foul. Hopefully, the only detritus that would wash out of this particular channel would be them.

Pointing her torch at the watch Jules held in his hands, Casper turned it over to reveal an embedded compass. "Hold it flat for me," she said, keeping the light of the torch square on the tiny dial.

The glittering needle swung idly for a couple of seconds before settling. North was behind her; the arm of the tunnel going _up_ was heading north-west. South was the downwards direction. Casper knew that she had lost a fair bit of blood and that the pain was probably likely to increase rather than the opposite, all of which told her she wasn't going to be up for a lot of yomping through these subterranean passages. This meant contacting Base was now imperative, but to do that, she had to be free from the signal-dampening effect of the tunnels. If they went north, she had no idea where they might end up, but if they followed the tunnel _down_ , towards the south-east, towards the Thames, there would eventually be some opening or outfall which would enable her to contact the others and call for help.

They would head south. Towards the river.

Decision made, Casper took a very deep breath and pushed one foot under her, staggering upright as the pain in her arm tore a sharp sob from her chest She had the feeling she wasn't going to enjoy this little jaunt very much.

"If you're not going to die, are you going to go unconscious again?" Jules looked up at her, a crease of inquisitiveness between his eyes.

"I'll do my best not to, but if I do, then Blythe can put another cold compress on my head and you can hold my secret agent torch, okay?"

"Okay," the child nodded, satisfied that the important things were settled.

"We're going down this way," Casper pointed with the torch-beam. "Stay out of the water if you can as it's going to be slippery. Be careful where you put your feet, and I want us all to hold hands so I don't get lost."

"Silly Casper," Blythe slid her small hand into the one which also held the torch. "As if we'd ever let you get lost."

Taking another of the deep breaths which helped clear her pounding head, Casper pointed the light forward. "Let's go."

###

The third time her phone beeped, Anthea's eyes peeled slowly open. The slit of light through the curtains told her it was broad afternoon and that she'd been asleep for at least four hours. Stretching out a hand, she grabbed the phone, quickly scrolling through the missed messages and calls. Nearly all of them said the same thing. With a hissed intake of breath, she rolled out of bed and straight into the shower.

Within twenty minutes, she was dressed, coiffured and _enroute_ to the Bank of England. She knew from the phone messages that Mycroft would not be there, which was just as well since she fully intended to take over his desk and everything that went with it.

###

They were standing in the main administrative office in the building, the only one with enough computers to present simultaneous dedicated images of the entire locale; both above and below ground. Sherlock was opening up screen after screen to display different sections of inner-London's tunnels while Lestrade was on the phone with the Yard. _Provost_ , who'd arrived in his own car shortly after the Jaguar, was on the phone with the Admiralty Office, verifying tide times.

"You do whatever it is you have to do, but do not even _think_ about trying to stop me," Cate faced her husband, hands on her hips and a fierce look of determination across her face. "I _insist_ on being part of the search-party, whoever else is involved is irrelevant."

Drawn instinctively to look, Lestrade and Sherlock observed the conversation from a slight distance, each displaying a curious but _intense_ expression of fascination as the elder Holmes was advised, in no uncertain terms, exactly how far his marital authority went.

"It's too dangerous for you down there," Mycroft stated, sensing the argument slip away from him. "More of my people will be here soon; I shall have the army ..."

" _Our children are down there_ ," Cate stabbed a finger towards the floor. " _I_ am going down with Sherlock and Greg ..."

"John should be arriving momentarily..." Sherlock's deep tones earned him a sharp glance from Mycroft's narrowed eyes.

"With _all_ of them of them," Cate continued. "You could come too," she added, quietly. "I'm not interested in security protocols or procedures or any of that," she said, staring up into a dark blue gaze. "But you should come; I can see how much it's killing you thinking you have to stay here and be in charge of things," she paused. "You want to be down there looking for them as much as I do, don't pretend otherwise."

Seeing the agony rise unbidden in Mycroft's face, Lestrade grabbed Sherlock's elbow and tugged him away "Getting a bit too personal now," he said. "Time we were elsewhere."

"But he's about to fold," Sherlock protested. "Utterly and completely, and I'm not going to be there to see it ..."

Increasing his grip on the younger man's arm, Lestrade nodded and pulled him out through the open door. "Not when there's kids involved, Sherlock," he said.

"I have no doubt the twins are perfectly safe and well," the younger Holmes hesitated. "Although I would prefer them not to be in such a location without my presence, or John's, to ensure their safety."

"Then just _try_ , for once, try and imagine how your brother's feeling," the silver-haired detective glared at him. "If it were _your_ kids down there ..." Lestrade shook his head. "Half of London would be up in arms by now."

"As I have no interest in procreation, your argument is specious, however ..." the younger Holmes paused again. "I take your point."

"Right, then. Why don't we stop wasting time up here and get on after the little darlings," Lestrade grinned madly. "Thank Christ I'll be long retired by the time those two are able to cause any real problems."

"I wouldn't get too comfortable with that assumption, Inspector," Sherlock smiled fleetingly. "The twins are fairly advanced for their chronological age."

Greg closed his eyes at the image of two more Holmes' on the rampage in London.

With a slight catch to his breathing, John strode out of the lift, pausing only when he met their eyes.

"So, what's going on then? What's the drill?"

"We are all twiddling our thumbs while we wait to hear of the scheduled tides," Sherlock was impatient. "Mycroft is being soundly told-off, an event which I have been barred from witnessing, and we still have not been able to make contact with the twin's security guard."

"Who's got enough nerve to tell Mycroft off? And about what?" John couldn't restrain the half-grin that curved his mouth.

At that moment, Cate walked out of the office, her face white. Mycroft was immediately behind her, still on his Nokia, speaking now with the university authorities. Ending the call, he met the collective gaze.

"We have seven hours before the bore runs," his voice was very controlled. "The Admiralty Office say the tidal surge will pass the Thames Barrier at approximately nine o'clock tonight, after which, it takes only minutes to race up to Teddington Lock," he breathed hard. "It may be all the time we have to find them."

"Then we'll find them before nine," John pressed a warm hand to Cate's cold fingers. "We will find them."

"Well what are we waiting for?" Lestrade lifted his hands in the air. "We've been stuck her for half-an-hour already, when we could've been down in the tunnels looking."

"Waiting for some essential equipment, Inspector," Mycroft turned to face the lift doors as they swished open, revealing another of his operatives carrying two large black cases.

When opened, the first disgorged six compact stainless-steel smartphones and the same number of slim, black-cased torches identical to the ones issued to his field staff.

"Designed originally for the mining industry, they work underground," Mycroft waited until each member of the search team took one of the phones. "I've had them specially adapted so that it will display a real-time GPS map of wherever you are in the tunnels," he paused, touching an icon on the screen. "And I also had them install this," he said, turning the screen so that everyone could see. There was a digital countdown with just a shade over seven hours left before the count moved into negative figures "These work both as phones and as walkie-talkies," he added. "All your call names are in each one of these, including yours, darling," he smiled faintly, looking down at Cate.

She squeezed his hand but said nothing. Despite his attempt to change her mind, he had anticipated she would insist on being part of the search-party.

"And the second case?" Sherlock wondered what other techno-wonders his brother had managed to appropriate.

"Nothing to get excited about, Sherlock," Mycroft flicked the catches open and lifted the lid. Inside there was a large pair of black wellingtons. "I'm coming too."

###

So far, so good.

Hugh Huth-Gardener sat back in the chill of his darkened office, tapping the end of a pen against his lower lip. It was an interesting development and all to the good as far as he was concerned. Those responsible for inserting spanners into various of his works had suddenly eased off. Unable to put a finger directly on what had changed; Huth-Gardiner knew only that the recent stifling sense of being crowded into a corner had, for some reason, _lessened_. Clearly his antagonist had other things to think about...

His contacts had reported no significant change in the state of play; no new participant or group on the scene, nor had he personally been able to divine the source or root cause for the let-up in the oppositional pressures that had, quite frankly, started to cause him a certain amount of grief.

It was as if whoever was behind his troubles had simply ... gone away.

 _How splendid_.

With a thin smile, he contemplated the tasks ahead. There was no surety his adversary would remain distanced, and thus certain of his plans would need to be escalated. Just in case.

Tapping the pen across a series of keys on the ultra-thin laptop in front of him, Hugh Huth-Gardiner began re-arranging the economy of the British Isles.

###

Fortunately, the tunnels were fairly wide and easy to walk along. Though the floor was curved with bricks laid down in Bazalgette's time, the footing was still sound and secure.

Thank God for small mercies.

Increasingly, Casper felt herself growing dizzy with the pain, which was odd really, since her left side had gone almost completely numb. She had taken the makeshift tourniquet off some time ago, but the bleeding hadn't restarted, so hopefully the wound, whatever it was, was small. If they had needed to clamber over and around complex obstacles, she didn't think she would have been able to move very far or very fast.

The twins seemed to be doing okay, although their bright chatter had diminished as they walked. No matter how clever they might be, they were still only five, with the physical strength and stamina of their age. Casper could see their little legs were getting tired. They should have a break.

Up ahead, the torch beams flickered across a low stone platform at the side of the tunnel, right before the darkness ahead turned sharply to the left as if joining an even bigger channel.

"Let's have a sit down and a bit of a rest, shall we?" Casper slowed down until she was level with the stone shelf. She sat, carefully; ensuring no part of her left arm touched anything.

"I'm tired," Jules sighed. "And hungry."

"I don't suppose either of you brought any sweeties?" Casper knew that sugar wouldn't last long, but it might give the children a slight energy lift.

"I have a bar of Nanny Nora's cake chocolate," Blythe rummaged in her tiny backpack, pulling out a large heavy slab of the culinary sweet. "Would you like some?"

"Chocolate would be fantastic," Casper smiled slightly. "I don't suppose you've got any orange juice in there too?"

Blythe shook her head. "Only water and a map."

A map? _What kind of map would be of use down here?_

As if reading her mind, the child nodded. "It's a map of the tunnels under the university," she said, handing over a soft page of old paper. "I know it was wrong to take this from the book, but other pages had already fallen out, so we didn't think anyone would mind too much," Blythe looked vaguely troubled.

"I don't think anyone will be too cross with you," Casper held the piece of paper in front of the torch grasped between her knees.

Faint and finely sketched, it was indeed a map of the main tunnels, watercourses and old storm-drains laid down since 1826 and the founding of the university itself.

There were also several lines showing...

"Can either of you hear anything?" Casper tilted her head and listened. Stopping what they were doing, including chewing, the twins did too.

There was indeed, the faint, far-off roar of running water.

"What is it?" Jules twisted his head to peer at the map.

"It's the Fleet River that runs underneath London," Casper's smile was genuine. "I never thought I'd ever get to hear it, so this little jaunt hasn't been a total write-off."

"Is it going to be long before we've finished walking, do you think?" Jules finished his chocolate. "My feet hurt."

Wondering about the best way to explain her plan, Casper was beaten to it by Blythe.

"It's obvious we're going downstream towards the Thames," she said, wiping her fingers on her leg. "But we should be going south and we're not."

It was true.

There had been no alternative but to follow the tunnel and, while it originally went on a mostly southerly direction, it had been veering more and more towards to south-east.

"We have to keep following the tunnel to the end, unless we see a door or ladder that we can use, so I want you both to keep your eyes open," Casper felt they had rested long enough and pushed herself onto her feet. A wave of dizziness swam around her head and she sucked down a hard breath to keep from staggering.

The twins were looking at her curiously when she opened her eyes.

"My feet hurt too," she said, forcing a smile. "But we can't stay here because nobody will be able to find us," she added. "We have to carry on and walk to the end of the tunnel where I can phone for help, or if we can find a door, although," Casper paused. "Any door we find will probably be locked."

"We have a key for the old doors," Jules nodded at his sister. "It belongs to Uncle Sherlock, but Blythe took it."

"I only _borrowed_ it," Blythe explained. "Just like Uncle Sherlock told us he borrowed Daddy's magic card."

Deciding that one day she really would have to meet Uncle Sherlock, Casper went back to the comment about a key.

"What kind of key?"

"This kind," Blythe produced a long, brass key with a small blade at one end and an oval ring at the other. It looked solid. It looked Victorian. Most of all, it looked useful.

"Then keep it safe; we may find a door up ahead that it opens," Casper nodded. "But in the meantime, we have to keep walking. C'mon, troops," she reached for Jules' hand this time, so he had something to hang onto.

As they walked on into the dark she wondered how long it was going to be until she passed out again.

###

Manoeuvring past the door with the broken hinges and down past the cast-iron staircase, all they saw was a cloud of choking dust hanging in the still air. Walking into the grey haze, Sherlock and John weren't able to get far.

"There was another door here, leading down into the main sewers," Sherlock coughed as brick-dust caught in his throat. "Looks like the entire wall went, after the door was opened."

 _Oh God_. Cate felt her chest seize. "Are there ... can you see anything?" she was terrified of both the questions and the possible answer.

"There's nothing this side," John returned and met her eyes. "It's all caved into the tunnel; there's almost no real detritus on this side at all."

"I've already called in the army to assist in the search; they should be able to clear this up fairly quickly," Mycroft's long fingers wrapped tightly around Cate's hand.

"What if ... what if the twins are ..." she waved at the fallen piles of masonry.

"The children are not beneath that, my love," Mycroft's voice was solemn but assured. "If there is any casualty, it will be Casper, I'm afraid," he added. "There are no bodies this side of the cave-in; therefore she must have been able to follow the children through before everything came down. I believe they are all on the other side of this collapse, in the tunnel beyond."

"If your security person went through this door and it fell around her, she may be hurt, so it's just as well I'm here," John was assessing the roof of the passageway. "And I don't much like the look of this ceiling either, so I suggest we retreat and find another way down into the sewers that isn't going to fall around our heads while we wait for the Engineer Corps to do their thing."

"The wall-map showed the next closest entrances to the tunnels both in Goodge Street and Russell Square," Sherlock wrinkled his forehead. "I suggest we split up; Lestrade, John and I taking Russell Square, while Mycroft, Cate and your other minion ..." Sherlock waggled his hand at Provost standing silently at the rear of the party, "take the Goodge Street entrance."

Lifting up his smartphone for all to see, Mycroft pointed to a junction between all three tunnels at Holborn. "If we haven't found them, we should _rendezvous_ here," he said. "And decide upon the next stage of the operation. I will have the army engineers clear this rubble and shore up the tunnel so that they can track from this location."

"But this is all going down towards the river and not up towards Euston," Lestrade had been checking the map too. "What if they went north instead of south?"

"Due to the designed slope of these drains and the recent rainfall, there will almost certainly be a trickle of water running _down_ the tunnel towards the river," Sherlock explained. "After the cave-in, the twins would not have waited for rescue, thinking that nobody knew they were down here, but would have realised they needed to find another way out. They would have instinctively followed the _downwards_ flow of the water rather than walk uphill _against_ it."

"And if Casper is with them," Mycroft sounded thoughtful. "As I'm confident she is, then she would be guiding them down to the nearest outfall, knowing that down must eventually bring them to the Thames."

"But the tunnels are open to the bore," Greg frowned, shaking his head. "It's too dangerous."

"Neither the twins nor, I suspect, Mycroft's security person, know this," Sherlock looked momentarily bleak. "We need to find them quickly." He looked at his brother. "Can you ensure we are able to access the alternative entrances?"

"As we speak," Mycroft's phone was again at his ear.

Returning to the North Cloister, the stamp of running boots drew everyone's attention to the quad-entrance as more than a dozen sappers came charging in, a maroon and dark-blue tactical recognition flash prominent on each of their right arms.

"We'll leave you to it, Mycroft," Sherlock called back over his shoulder as he, John and Lestrade ran towards the same door. "I'll let you know when we're down there."

The commanding officer ignored the three running men and made straight for the tall, smartly-dressed individual in wellingtons.

"Lieutenant Hari Makkar, looking for one, Mycroft Holmes," a stocky young man in his late twenties smiled agreeably.

"Thank you for the speedy arrival, Lieutenant," Mycroft shook the engineer's hand. "There are two small children lost in the underground sewers; they gained entrance through the door in the room behind us. There has been a subsidence of the tunnel wall and they have been trapped within."

"You want us to clear the breach and find the children?"

"Precisely," Mycroft paused. "Locating the children is time-critical as these particular drains are still open to the Thames bore which is due at nine tonight."

"Understood," the Royal Engineer nodded slowly. He knew exactly what they were up against. "Not that it matters, but whose children are they and how did they get down there?"

Mycroft paused again, as Cate slipped her hand into his. "Ours," he said, wrapping a long arm around her shoulders. "Five-year-old twins; the story is too long."

Meeting Cate's troubled gaze, the lieutenant assessed the situation and smiled briefly. "We'll get them back to you, Ma'am," he said encouragingly. Turning, he issued several rapid-fire instructions as one section of his men ran into the annex, the resulting din making it clear the stored furniture was being treated with extreme prejudice. The other section ran back out to their transport to bring in several very long and heavy steel braces.

"This may be of assistance to you," Mycroft handed over his stainless-steel phone. "All our call-signs are on there, plus a map with real-time GPS and a time-remaining facility. We are going to enter the tunnels via two other entrances here," he pointed. "And here. We will need to liaise."

"Excellent," Lieutenant Makkar nodded at the phone. "We have our own version of these, but it's good to have your contacts. Now, if you'll excuse me?"

Leaving the engineers to their task and pulling Cate towards the Cloisters exit, Mycroft could already see the dark curve of the waiting car. They would be at the secondary entrance in Goodge Street in less than two minutes.

"I'm surprised you gave him your phone," Cate's voice was tense. It had been almost an hour already and she hadn't been able to do anything practical yet. Even her teeth felt on edge.

"Since I have absolutely no intention of letting you out of my sight until we have found the twins and are all safely back at home, I can use yours," he said, watching at the Jaguar pulled into the kerb beside the Goodge Street underground tube station. Helping Cate out of the car, he held her hand tight as two of his people guided them away from the rush of travellers and into a quiet side-passage. There was an old, heavily riveted door, unlocked and waiting for them. Stepping through, they saw a long series of downward steps.

"Want me to take point?" Provost waited for instructions.

"Not yet. Torches," Mycroft flicked his own device into life and led them down into the depths.

###

Instructing the uniformed security guard at the Reception that she was expecting a number of visitors and to show them up upon arrival, Anthea followed this piece of information with additional and somewhat unexpected directions.

Not only did the guard fail to question these directives, but he also failed to maintain his usual expression of impassive detachment. A furtive grin spread over his face.

"It will be my pleasure, Ma'am," he said, eyes wide with anticipation.

"Yes, it will," she nodded and made for the lift.

Settling down at Mycroft's grandiose desk, Anthea started making herself at home. Reaching for the nearest of the desk phones, she issued the first of twelve invitations.

###

When she turned it over in her hand, her watch said it was after three o'clock; they had been walking slowly for hours and none of them were at their best.

The twins still talked, but it was a desultory and minimal conversation without their usual energy. Though they had been doing their best, the fact that they could take only short steps had been aggravated by the uneven and slippery tunnel floor, not to mention the interminable dark. They were also very tired and thirsty, although they had not complained.

Casper knew her own situation was little better. Her arm, which had been mercifully numb for a while, had woken up with a vengeance, and now every step sent jarring spikes of pain through her entire body. The bleeding had started again; she could feel it dripping from her fingertips. She felt achy and sick and wanted nothing more but to lie down on a soft surface and close her eyes for a while.

Blythe caught her foot and fell, with a brief cry.

Stopping, Casper looked down and held out her good hand. There was no way she could pick the child up, and if she knelt down, she wasn't entirely sure she would be able to get back up again.

"Are you alright?"

"I've cut my hand," Blythe's voice wobbled slightly. Falling over in the dark would have given her a shock.

"Let me see," Casper inspected the graze in the light of the torch. It was bleeding a little, though it was mostly shallow. "I know it stings, but it will stop bleeding very soon. You have to be even braver now until we can get out and have it looked at," she said, watching Blythe's face. Even though her mouth was turned down at the corners, the child nodded.

"You're bleeding too," Jules looked as the slow drips falling to the damp floor. "Do you need me to tie the string around your arm again?"

She probably did, but the thought of anything touching her arm made her feel ill.

"Not just now, thank you," Casper smiled wearily. "I think we're all tired and need another rest," she said. "Why don't we go and sit over there," she added, pointing her torch at a wide but shallow step that had been running down the side of the tunnel for some time. It wasn't much, but it was dry.

Sharing out some more of the chocolate and having a sip each of water made things a little better, but not much.

"Why don't you two lie down, you can use your bags as pillows and maybe have a little sleep?" Casper edged herself further back against the wall until her own legs were stretched out. "I'll be here in case anyone comes looking for us and start shouting."

"Will anyone come looking for us?" Jules mumbled as he lay down, trying to get comfortable on the cold stone.

"I expect there are lots of people looking right now," Casper picked up her torch. "I'm going to turn the light off while we have a rest to save the battery, so don't be frightened."

"We're not _babies_ ," Blythe mumbled, already half-asleep.

No, Casper thought. They certainly weren't babies, although they really weren't much more. Switching off the torch brought immediate and total darkness. In the dark and the silence and with the pain, shock and loss of blood, she closed her eyes.

 _Only for a minute_. She would close them only for a minute.


	8. Chapter 8

_A Potential Connection – Into the Unknown – Holborn - Blocked – Anxiety – New Fetter Lane – The Dénouement – A Breakthrough – Operative Down – HOLBORN._

#

#

Now _that_ was interesting, Sally Donovan replayed the scrap of CCTV coverage from the St James's Park death and then ran a corresponding recording from the very first known spider- killing in Regent's Park. Both pieces were from distant cameras and, even though the IT people had played around with them, blown them up and tried to de-fuzz them as much as possible, the images were still grainy and difficult to make out.

Yet even with all these problems, it was quite possible to see a slim young man wearing an American college jacket; dark blue with white sleeves. The man was wearing a hoodie under the jacket, so most of his head and face was obscured but it was clear he was waiting not far from the park bench where the first body had been found.

Flicking across to the second bit of recording, this one from St James, there was a shadowy figure walking away along the far side of the park at roughly the same time the third death had taken place. Normally, she wouldn't have been overly interested in such a vague passer-by, but this one was special.

This one was wearing an American college jacket; dark blue with white sleeves.

 _Finally_ ; a potential connection.

Grinning, she sat at her computer, sending through a formal request for every available bit of CCTV coverage of the crime scenes from an hour prior to an hour after the estimated time of death. She was going to find out who this mystery man was, what he did, and where he lived. And then she was going to nab him.

###

To the left of the entrance to the Russell Square tube station stood a modern, brown-steel-and-glass door; grimy and in need of a good clean. At a casual glance, it looked as if it might be the entrance to the flats above, until you looked to the left again and saw the entryway there with all the different doorbells. Nor was this brown steel door anything to do with the underground station, even though it was surrounded by the same glossy burgundy tiles as the station opening itself. Yet it was not connected to the flats next door, nor to the Russell Square tube, but stood alone; understated, ignored and for the most part, overlooked.

But now it was flanked by two of Mycroft's people, watching for a cab containing several passengers. Within minutes of being told to have the door opened and ready, a black London cab pulled up and three men emerged: one was tall, dark-haired and looked as if he were being chased by devils. The second, an equally tall man with silver hair; the third, blonde and as driven as the first. With barely a nod to the door's two guardians, they brushed past and through to a second door several feet inside the first.

The second door was much different. Old, solidly black and heavy with iron rivets, _this_ door spoke of London's history and antique engineering. It too was unlocked. Passing through and beyond, the three men were faced with a long and narrow passage, the walls shiny with a Victorian checkerboard of burgundy and white tiles. At the end of the passage was a set of stairs going down.

A very long way down.

Almost as soon as they had begun the descent, Sherlock's new phone rang. It was Mycroft.

"We're almost at the lower tunnels," he said. "Where are you?"

"Descending now," Sherlock flashed his torch around. "These stairs and service tunnels are in exceptionally good condition, Mycroft. Almost _too_ good to be true, in fact."

"Yes, well, no need to go into that now," the elder Holmes changed the subject. "I've given my phone to the officer in charge of the engineers at the university, so if you need to contact me, call Cate, as I shall be with her every step of the way."

"You realise you are more likely to need protection and support than your wife? Cate is entirely capable of looking after herself."

"It's an unconscious marital compulsion, Sherlock," Mycroft exhaled. "Don't attempt to understand it; I barely fathom it myself at times. Let me know when you're actually in the tunnels. I shall advise Lieutenant Makkar of our progress. Good luck."

After contacting the army engineer and handing the phone back to a distracted Cate, Mycroft turned to Provost, standing at the rear. "I want you to maintain a scout position of several yards; let me know of anything out of the ordinary."

Nodding, the younger man moved fifteen feet ahead and walked slowly forward, his torch scanning the floor and surrounding walls of the tunnel. It headed almost due south, parallel to Gower Street, but according to the map, would soon take a sharp turn left as it ran beneath the British Museum and on towards Holborn, to a place where three tunnels met; this one, the one running down from Russell Square and the central one, leading down from beneath the old university buildings. The one the twins were in.

Taking Cate's hand in his, Mycroft followed behind his very able young intelligence officer, wishing there was some way of pinpointing the children's location.

Though not a terribly long way as the crow flew, progress would be necessarily slow as the tunnels were narrow, waterlogged and pitch black. It was to be hoped that nothing else might happen to delay them.

It was nearly four o'clock. Five hours until the tunnels flooded.

###

It was well after four when the increasing pain jolted her awake and into a darkness of head-spinning nausea. Lying quietly for a moment, Casper forced herself to breathe deeply, just to increase the oxygen going to her brain.

From her awkward and uncomfortable position, it was clear she had fallen asleep and in doing so, slipped over to her right side. That the movement hadn't woken her at the time demonstrated her level of exhaustion. But now even that could not keep the pain at bay.

Pushing herself slowly, agonisingly, upright, Casper flicked her torch on to peer at her hand. The bleeding seemed to have stopped again, but her fingers were dark and swollen and she couldn't move any of them; her entire sleeve was saturated and stiff with dried blood. She chose not to look any closer for fear of what she would see. There was no time for her to start worrying about herself yet; once they were all out, she could kick up as much of a fuss as she liked.

Looking across as the twins, she saw they were still asleep despite the chill of the stone. It would have been good to let them sleep for longer, but Casper knew she had to get them all out while she still could.

"C'mon, sleepy," she said, rocking Jules' shoulder until he started grumbling. "Wake up time."

"Why is it so dark?" Jules sat up, blinking and rubbing his eyes. "Are we still in the tunnel?"

"'Fraid so, Jules. Can you wake your sister, please?"

Yawning, he leaned over and tugged on Blythe's jacket until she stirred.

"I'm thirsty and my hand hurts," she said, sitting up, her hair all scrunched up on one side. "How much longer before we can go home?"

Casper closed her eyes for a moment. How much could she tell them? They were smart kids and as they had repeatedly advised her, they weren't babies.

"Okay, Guys; it's like this," she turned to the children. "I need to get to a doctor because my arm is really starting to hurt a lot, but this means you're going to have to walk quite a bit more and do it fairly quickly before I can get to a place where I can use my phone and call for help. I know your feet hurt, Jules, and I know your hand is sore, Blythe, but the longer we stay in these tunnels the worse it's going to get, _so_ ..." she paused, looking between the two of them. "Are you ready to walk as long as you can so that we can call for help and all go home?"

The twins looked at each other; some unspoken communication passed between them before they both turned and nodded.

"Then we should get started before we all get tired again," Casper lifted wearily to her feet holding out her hand. "Who wants to hold me up this time?"

Everything ached as they started walking again. Not only from all the things that had gone before, but resting on a cold slab of stone wasn't exactly good for aches and pains, either. Not only sore, but stiff, although, Casper had to admit, that bit of a nap had helped with the energy levels a little.

The map-page from the old book showed that they were coming to a junction of three tunnels at Holborn. From there, one tunnel went due west, towards Piccadilly Circus; the central one, due south to the river, and the other, due east, towards St Paul's Cathedral. They would take the central one and walk in the quickest way possible down towards the Embankment. Casper had no idea where they might come out, but all she needed was radio reception and she could call for help. That was the plan.

It was very likely there were people looking for them now, so it was also entirely possible that they might meet up with one of the rescuers enroute, which would help. It would be unthinkable for anyone like Mycroft Holmes not to pull out all the stops in a situation like this. Taking as deep a breath as she could before the pain hit, she pointed the torch forward and began walking.

Whether it was the sleep that helped or the fact that they all knew what they had to do, the next part of the tunnel seemed to be particularly easy to navigate and before they realised it, they stood beneath a large clay plaque, high up on the wall at the three-tunnel junction incised with large, easily legible lettering, HOLBORN. The fresh tang of the river flowed up from the central channel.

"Here's where we can go south," Casper tried to keep her voice light, but already her arm was bleeding again; not fast, but a drop fell from her fingertips with every couple of steps. She wondered how much blood someone could lose and remain vertical. It looked like she was going to find out.

Crossing the junction was easier said than done, as the floor was slippery and uncertain beneath a couple of inches of sluggish-flowing water.

"Careful now," she warned as the twins tip-toed across the uneven joining of the three openings. Above the central tunnel, inscribed deep into the old brick, was the single word _Kingsway_. This was the tunnel the map said would take them directly down towards the Thames, but they immediately hit a snag. Several yards into the mouth of the southern tunnel and there were a number of large, concrete blocks braced across the width of it, narrow gaps between them; each block with a series of smaller openings at the bottom allowing the water to run through. Why the blocks were there was anyone's guess, but Casper knew she was in trouble.

Each block was about six-feet high; in her normal state, not a problem at all and easily navigated.

But right now, they meant the end of her plan. She couldn't scale anything in her present state and with only one arm. Nor could she crawl through the small openings beneath the blocks ... although the twins could. Should she send them on through by themselves?

But no; there was no way she could send them away, even though it might mean they were picked up sooner. No; they'd stay together. Rescue might take longer, but it'd be safer.

"I can't go that way, kids," Casper informed them. "I can't climb."

Both of them turned to look, assessing her injured arm and the expression on her face.

"Then if we can't go to the river and we can't stay here, we have to choose which way we keep walking," Blythe was the epitome of logic. "Which way do we go?"

"According to the map," Casper noted, "the western tunnel heads back north, but the eastern one goes east and there are at least three more tunnels that branch off towards the river along the way; so we should go east."

Turning to face the eastern-headed tunnel, Blythe reached for Casper's hand and they headed into the darkness.

###

As soon as he had confirmed with his brother that they had reached the tunnels beneath Russell Square, Sherlock, John and Lestrade headed off at a fast pace, the beams of their combined torches producing an intricate light-show on the curved walls of the subterranean passageway.

"According to the university map, this one heads in a southerly direction until it intersects with the two other tunnels at Holborn," Sherlock advised, his eyes focused straight ahead. "At that point the tunnels diverge into east, south and west. If the twins and hopefully, their guard are looking for the swiftest exit, they will take the southerly tunnel that leads most directly to the river."

"And the most dangerous one _because_ of the river," Greg shone his torch down at the stream of water at his feet. It seemed to be getting deeper. _Odd_.

"Yeah, but they don't know that; they're going to think it's the best way through. How are we going to know which tunnel they've taken, assuming they get there before us?" John scanned the far-dark; there was nothing to see except more tunnel.

"You know my methods, John," Sherlock sounded confident. "Trust me, if they have reached the intersection before us, we will know which way they went and act accordingly."

"What if they've gone down towards the river?" Lestrade narrowed his eyes as his torch flickered across long cracks in the tunnel walls. It looked as if the whole place was past its best.

"Then _I_ will follow, Inspector," Sherlock's voice went hard. "There is no alternative."

"Don't think you're going anywhere by yourself, either," John was right beside him.

"We'd better get a move on, in that case," Greg's voice was equally terse. The idea they might not catch up with the children was an untenable one.

Less than five minutes later, had it not been for the fact there were three bright torches shining ahead of them, they might have run head-first into the dam of rocks and rubble from a partial roof-collapse. It couldn't have happened too long ago as there was still dust in the air and the block water-flow was still only inches deep.

But the tunnel appeared completely blocked.

"A sympathetic collapse," John scanned the in fall, looking for any sign that it was an incomplete blockage. "Must have come down when the tunnel under the university collapsed; the shock probably triggered it. If we're lucky, this will be the only one."

Sherlock was already scrambling up the pile of debris, shining his torch up at the curved ceiling.

" _Oy_ , take it easy, you," Lestrade scowled. "If you bring the rest of it down on our heads then any chance we have of finding the kids goes right out the window."

"Look around you, Lestrade," Sherlock took a few seconds to point out the ceiling with his own torch. "There are no loose bricks or cracks here. Everything that was going to come down already has, so instead of bemoaning our fate, why not do something productive and see if there's a way through on the far side?"

"Not bemoaning anything," Greg muttered under his breath as he clambered up the slope of bricks on the other side, peering up at the roof for any sign of an incomplete fall.

There was no obvious gap anywhere.

A decision was needed.

"We either try and clear a way past all this," John coughed with the dust. "Or we go back to Russell Square and move across to the next entrance and try again."

Sherlock pulled out his steel phone and called Mycroft.

"We've hit another cave-in," he said. "The tunnel is completely blocked but based on the circumference of the scree, I believe we should be able to create a passable opening within fifteen minutes, assuming no additional falls. Anything where you are?"

Mycroft and Cate's tunnel had just veered east and they were now heading directly for the Holborn junction, walking almost directly beneath Tottenham Court Road. For some reason, movement in their particular tunnel had been plagued by a deeply uneven floor; they had had to reduce speed quite significantly, but were still on-track to _rendezvous_ as agreed.

There seemed little point in returning to Russell Square and trying again elsewhere; they would just have to move as much of the fall away from near the ceiling and get through as soon as they could.

Tucking the phone safely back into his coat, Sherlock began heaving chunks of old Portland cement from the top of the pile, flinging them recklessly away. After dodging a few unintended missiles, his companions realised the only way to be safe from such a determined fusillade was to be up close; anything less than an actual hands-on involvement risked injury from all the fall-out. With identical expressions, John and Lestrade joined in the effort to clear the fallen debris.

###

She couldn't help herself as the panic grew.

Normally, Cate managed to stay on an even keel about most things, but the twins running off like this, and into such a horribly dangerous situation, was eroding much of her usual fortitude. As she walked, despite Mycroft holding her hand, despite knowing that everyone was involved in the search and that even the army had been called in, an image of the children lying hurt and terrified in some darkened hole somewhere; unconscious perhaps, unable to call her name ... she felt her insides grow tighter and tighter as the panic swirled out of control.

A sob ripped from her chest as she stopped walking and bent over, trying not to retch as her breath caught and failed. Gulping down great drafts of air, Cate allowed the chilling sensation of panic to wash over and through her, standing immobile and wretched as her anxiety peaked.

" _Darling_ ," Mycroft was instantly beside her, his circling arms bringing her tight to his chest. "Breathe, my love, _breathe_ ," he said, his voice uneven with concern as he held her shaking body close to his warmth. "We _will_ find them; they _are_ going to be alright and we are all going to be going home safely tonight," he murmured calmly. "You only need to be strong for a few more hours and this awful situation will be over, I promise."

"How can you promise? How can you know enough to make such a promise?" Cate clung to him blindly, her entire frame shuddering from the intensity of the emotion that roiled inside.

"Have I ever promised you something that didn't happen?" Mycroft held her close to his shoulder, sheltering her as if from a cold wind. "Have I ever told you anything that wasn't true?"

"Your promises always happen," she acknowledged raggedly, her breathing still harsh. "You don't lie to me."

"And I am not lying now," he said, his long fingers cupping her pale cheek and lifting her away so he could see her eyes glittering in the dark. "My love, I promise, we will have them home and safe tonight."

"You really promise?" she covered his hand with her own cold one.

"I really do," Mycroft searched her face for belief.

"How can you be sure?"

He hadn't wanted to have this conversation until the children were safe, but it was a valid question and it was true; he would never lie to her.

"I spoke with the Army lieutenant immediately after I spoke with Sherlock."

Cate vaguely remembered a conversation but she hadn't been listening, too caught up in her own uneasiness to pay attention. "Yes?"

"They were able to put a small, heat-seeking, thermal imaging camera into the tunnel the other side of the fall," he paused. "Nothing registered; there were no bodies anywhere near the site, not one."

"Which means ..." Cate battled with the obvious conclusion.

"That the twins and Casper are no longer in the vicinity of the cave-in, my darling. They had already left the site before the army arrived."

"But all a thermal image does is locate body-heat," Cate shook her head to clear it. "What if ... what if there were no ... body heat to detect?"

"The human body, even in death, does not lose its heat so swiftly," Mycroft spoke gently and pressed her chilly palm to his face. "The children are not dead and are very probably unharmed in the least. Casper is with them."

"But where?" Cate whispered. "Where are they?"

Mycroft sighed; this was the part he hadn't wanted to discuss. "I don't know," he said flatly. "Logic dictates they would have followed the tunnel down to the place we intend to meet the others, but ... we cannot be absolutely sure."

"But we know, positively, they're not dead?"

"They're not dead, my love, they may be lost, but that's why we're here. We shall find them and you shall have them home and safe before midnight. I swear it."

Closing her eyes and allowing a massive shudder to ease out of her, Cate felt a weight roll away from her. If Mycroft said they were all right, she would believe him.

"We'd better move if we're to reach the _rendezvous_ in time to meet the others," he took her hand and drew her onwards again, towards the meeting of the three tunnels.

###

Her torch flickered several times before going dark and Casper despaired as a new wave of frustration and fatigue depleted her already fading reserves. Feeling as if some monstrous beast was gradually chewing its way through, the pain in her arm had reached the point where she could manage only shallow breaths; anything more was simply too painful. If she stopped for another rest now, she wasn't at all sure she would be able to get going again.

"Look," Jules flashed his torch up at the curved ceiling. There was another oval clay plaque, this one bearing the words CHANCERY LANE.

They were moving slowly and gradually across the centre of London, and according to the sketchy map, were now on a direct path to St Paul's Cathedral.

"There's another tunnel turning south to the river any time now," Casper's throat was bone-dry and her voice cracked. "We shall try to go down that one and see what happens," she said. "What time is it, Blythe?"

Getting her brother to shine their remaining light down on the watch-face, Blythe scrunched up her eyes in an attempt to read the small dial in the poor light. "About quarter-past five," she said, eventually. "We're been down here a very long time."

"Yes, we have," Casper stopped for a moment, breathing heavily as her head spun. "Let's hope it won't be much longer, eh? Jules, I need to hold your torch, please. Mine's gone dead and I can see farther than you."

"Can I have your secret agent torch as a swap?" though she couldn't see his face clearly, the tone of his voice told Casper he was hopeful.

"Yeah, you can," she agreed, handing over her slim black piece as she took his in exchange.

It was only minutes later that the next southward-facing tunnel opening arrived. Incised deeply into the stone archway, the words _New Fetter Lane_ were still visible. The salty smell of the river was strong here; a breeze laden with moist Thames air brushed against their faces. They were close, but as Casper checked, her radio was still dead, as was the reception on her phone. _Not quite close enough_. Turning hopefully down into the entrance, they had not gone more than ten feet before the same massive concrete blocks blocked their pathway.

"Damn, damn, _damn!_ " Casper groaned in utter exasperation.

"That's what daddy says sometimes, when he forgets his office door is open," Jules nodded knowingly. "It usually means someone has done something wrong," the child paused. "Have you done something wrong?"

"Only that I was _really_ hoping we could get down this tunnel," Casper leaned her good side against the right-hand edge of the tunnel, clamping her jaw tight so as to deny the rise of tears that seemed just below the surface. "But I can't get past these blocks, so we'll have to keep going for a bit longer, I think." Even through the fog of pain, common-sense hadn't entirely deserted her. "Either of you two got a piece of paper and a pen?"

It was Jules' turn to produce the items from his backpack; a small notepad with lots of scribbles on it and a neat little pencil. "Will these do?"

"Can you hold the paper for me against the wall, here," Casper pointed to a relatively flat bit of masonry as she took the pencil.

 _Children OK; My arm broken; bleeding. Will continue to seek exit in SE direction. St P's & BoE. Hurry_.

"Now tear out the page from the book and roll it up nice and tight," Casper struggled into a more upright stance as she took the small piece of paper and, finding a gap between the bricks of the archway, pressed the paper clumsily into a thin crack at eye-level; just sufficient that it wouldn't fall out, but leaving a good three-quarters of it protruding into space. Anyone coming along the passageway with a torch couldn't fail to see it. At least they'd know where to continue the search.

"Come on then, guys," Casper pushed herself back upright. She had no idea how long she could keep going, but whatever it was, she had to put it to the best use she could. The idea of finding an exit was fading into the unlikely; all she wanted now was to find a safe place for the children to wait for help. There would be help, Casper knew.

"What time is it?" she asked.

Blythe pressed the tiny light in her watch. "Twenty-past five," she sighed wearily.

Less than four hours before the bore ran.

###

It was almost six o'clock. Everything was arranged.

In the glorious chamber that was ostensibly the office of Mycroft Holmes, Anthea had arranged twelve chairs in a semi-circle. All she had to do now, was wait.

There was a soft buzz from the intercom on the desk; a murmur of words.

"Send them up," she checked her preparations; there was nothing left to do now but allow the scene to unfold.

Of course, it was the Count and Dante who would arrive first; they had to be seen to be in place ... relaxed and waiting before the others appeared.

"So this is your little secret, eh, Anthea? You have pride of place at the _Bank of England_ itself? Consider me suitably impressed," the Count took in the fabulous surroundings with a slight smile. The woman had told him she had access to money and she clearly hadn't been lying.

Dante sprawled in a brocaded Hepplewhite chair, his fingers tapping an impatient tempo along the padded arm. "You said you had something amazing to show us all, but why bring us here?" he asked curiously. "It's rare for the full coven to assemble anywhere during the day; we have no wish to draw attention to ourselves."

"But this is so important and will set us all onto a new and exciting path," Anthea smiled winningly as she held the man's gaze. "I promise that by the end of the day, you will have experienced things of which you have never dreamed."

"I can hardly contain myself," the Count spoke dryly as he took a luxuriously-padded chair for himself and crossed his legs. "Tell me your plans."

"Wait until the rest of the group has arrived," Anthea's smile suddenly coy. "It won't be long."

And she was correct; within minutes, the rest of the group assembled, had been equally impressed with the unusual surroundings, and each had found a seat.

"We are all eager to hear what great things you have to tell us, Anthea; do not keep us waiting any longer," though the Count's words were friendly, there was a warning edge to them. Though said with a smile, Anthea heard the censure.

"Before I tell you the wonderful news, I'd just like to summarise what I know of each of you so far," she paused, turning to a vacant-looking young woman. "Dear Sacha," she looked at the blonde. "So ambitious, so naïve, so vain; and you, Leno," Anthea looked at the young man next in line. "So greedy; a thief should know his limits ..."

Anthea had words for them all, _dealer; philanderer; adulterer; robber; cheat_ ... their faces falling into bafflement as she walked around the half-circle until she came to the two most important.

"You, my dear Count, are an extraordinarily clever man; handsome, witty, erudite, and one of the most egotistical con-artists in Britain at this time," she paused, turning to stare at the last, but not the least of the group. "But it is _you_ , Dante, who has masterminded this entire group and brought all these sad, mislead and morally derelict individuals together for your little games," she said. "And then you came after _me_ ," she looked down at the man, still sprawled in his chair. "With an advert you knew would catch my eye, in a newspaper you knew I'd read. And I really began to wonder why that might be."

Utterly unperturbed by her little show, the man known as Dante smiled. "It has been most instructive, coming here this afternoon," he rose to his feet, maintaining eye contact with her all the while. "Since it is now abundantly clear that you never were part of our little group, were you?" he asked, a dangerous menace in his voice. "You are clearly _too_ flawless for us and we are all wasting our time trying to help you expand your abilities into those realms beyond sight and the mundane," he paused. "Since you have no imperfections, then we poor, imperfect, seekers after wisdom should leave, although I warn you now that this little _game_ of yours will not be without its consequences ... I fear you will find the results of today to be most ... _unpleasant_."

"I never said I was perfect," Anthea held the man's eyes and stared him down. "I have my own fault to confess."

"And what might that be?" Dante loomed over her, his face a cold sneer.

"I'm a liar," she said, a winning smile curving her mouth. "My name's not Anthea."

With a snarl, Dante raised his hand as if to strike her down just as Nigel Vaughn-Williams stepped out from behind the secret door at the far end or the room, a pistol levelled in his hands, aimed squarely at the man's chest.

"Not the best idea you've had today, old chap," he said, walking swiftly closer as more than half-a-dozen more of his colleagues followed him into the room, each armed and looking very serious indeed.

"Perfect timing," Anthea waited until the entire group had been taken out. "Most of them are unsuspecting idiots," she said, flicking her gaze across to Dante the Count. "But these two will have useful information."

Vaughn-Williams nodded, a half-smile on his face as the two leaders were dragged away. "I'll need your full name for my report," he said, turning to meet her dark eyes. "Your _real_ full name."

Anthea smiled. "Anthea _is_ my real name," she said.

"Is that the truth?" the MI5 operative narrowed his eyes a little, assessing her expression.

"Of course it is," Andrea smiled again.

###

Lestrade felt the sting of salt in his eyes as he continued to claw away at the pile of rubble close to the roof of the tunnel. All three of them had been going at the blockage for over twenty minutes and their hands were cut and bloodied, every bit of exposed skin coated in dust. Sherlock's hair clung to the side of his face.

Suddenly, there was a brief rumble as a small slide of bricks fell away from the nearest curve of wall, all three men hesitating in case they might have to make a run for it, and then; blessed coolness. A light breeze drifted past them, coming through the small gap that had finally appeared at the top of the piled rubble.

"Nearly there, I think," John wiped the back of his hand across his face, taking some of the sweat and grit with it. "At least we've managed to make a gangway."

"Then the sooner we widen the gap, the sooner we can get on with the search," Sherlock was already back up at the top of the heap, already dragging more of the loosened bricks aside, reckless of his own safety. The only thought in his mind the same one that had been there since entering the tunnels: find the twins and get them out. The longer they were down here, the less he liked it. An indefinable pressure squeezed his chest tight as he imagined the children lost in the dark.

"Hey, _Sherlock_ ," Lestrade cursed, ducking as a couple of old bricks whistled over his head. "Take it _easy_ ; none of us can do any good if we end up being brained by low-flying masonry," the tall police officer gave the younger Holmes the widest berth possible as he struggled back up towards the top of the pile of rubble. Grabbing John's hand, Greg managed to haul himself closer to the ever-widening gap, now almost wide enough for one of them to crawl through.

"Yeah, take it easy, you daft sod," John caught Sherlock's arm for a second. "We know you're anxious about the kids, but killing us with stray blocks of concrete isn't going to help."

Turning his head, Sherlock looked puzzled. "I'm not worried," he frowned. "Despite their extreme youth, Blythe and Jules are perfectly able to stay out of harm's way, and we will find them," he blinked twice. "We must."

"Yeah," Lestrade bent his back to the digging, his voice nearly inaudible. "Course you're not worried."

###

The first time things went dark, she thought it was because Jules' torch was going flat and she shook it several times until things brightened again. The second time it was as if the darkness in the tunnel suddenly became so dark, that for a moment it overpowered the ability of the light to shine through.

It was only when she actually dropped the torch, and stood there unable to think about picking it up, that Casper realised that it wasn't the light that was dimming, but her; she had gone about as far as she was likely to go.

Just up ahead, there was another junction of three tunnels, but she couldn't think straight, let alone do anything about it. All she knew was she had to lie down and close her eyes before she fell over.

"Sorry kids," she croaked. "I have to rest; I'm not well."

Blythe picked up the torch from beneath Casper's dangling right hand and flashed it around. "There's another one of those big shelf things over there," she said, pointing. "Can you walk there?"

Dragging her head up just enough to see what the torch illuminated, Casper saw that there was indeed another stone shelf at the other side of the junction. A place to lie down and just stop walking. It would do.

Staggering across the remaining distance, Casper realised she was literally on her last legs, her right hand grabbing the low stone ledge almost at the same moment as she nearly fell. Taking as deep a breath as she could, she sat and slowly lay down on her right side.

"Don't wander away," she muttered. "Stay here until help comes. If I let you get lost, your dad will be very upset with me."

"I think daddy is going to be a bit cross in any case," Jules agreed in a small voice. "But we'll tell him that this wasn't your fault and so he won't be cross with you. How would that do?"

When there was no immediate answer, both twins turned to look at Casper's face. The woman's eyes were closed and her face was white beneath the streaks of blood. She was also very, very quiet.

###

Once they had widened the gap just sufficient for Lestrade to scramble through, all three men resumed their run down the tunnel at a precipitous speed. Passing a couple of secondary branch tunnels, they raced on until they arrived at a large junction, a huge oval plaque above their heads displayed the name HOLBORN.

They were not the first to arrive; by the flashing beams of light, it was clear that Mycroft and Cate had beaten them to it.

"Got here a minute ago," Mycroft sounded and looked grim. "The twins and Casper have already come this way," he added.

"How can you tell?" John looked around; there were no obvious signs that he could see.

"You're looking in the wrong place, John," Sherlock's voice sounded as bleak as his brother's.

John looked down to where several torches now combined their light.

 _Blood_. Heavy drops of blood. Either one of the twins or Casper was badly hurt.

"It's not the twins," the younger Holmes was quick to announce before Cate asked. "The spatter-pattern indicates the blood fell from at least three or four feet up in the air, and that's too high for the children," he turned to face Mycroft. "Your security person is injured," he said. "But it looks as if she's trying to get the twins out through the tunnels," he scanned around with his torch before finally lifting his eyes towards the eastern tunnel. "That way."

Without a word spoken between them, the brothers turned and strode into the endless dark. At least now, there was a trail to follow, but it was nearly seven o'clock.

Only two hours left to find the missing and get everyone to safety.


	9. Chapter 9

_The Beginning of the End – Reunion – Two Birds, One Stone – A Race to the Exit – A Police Emergency – Sergeant Donovan to the Rescue – The Thames Bore – System Failure – The Plot Thickens – Waiting for Salvation._

#

#

Hugh Huth-Gardiner whistled softly to himself in the chill-darkness of his office. Now that the obstructive pressure pushing back against his various ... _activities_ had eased, he was able to initiate nearly all his pre-planned strategies. Keying a handful of time-critical modifications directly into the national balance-of-payments Capital account, he knew it would be several hours before he could see any clear results, but he had inserted a number of milepost flags which would alert him automatically as things changed.

It wouldn't be long now until the British economy was entirely at his mercy, hanging by the merest whisper of a thread until he was asked to step in and save everything; to do what he normally did in fact, but this time, in the public eye. He was sick and tired of forever rescuing the country from the idiocies and vagaries of incompetent politicians and small-minded economists. It had been _his_ genius and _his_ ingenuity that had gained him this role in the first place; _he_ had been the one to salvage whatever had been left to salvage after the cataclysmic financial disasters of recent years, and what recognition had he gained for it? _Nothing_. What personal benefits and rewards had he received from a grateful public for the saving of their entire national economy? Precisely _none_. His total number of heroic acclamations and royal honours rested at zero. His unswerving efforts to keep Britain on the straight-and-narrow, denying the global financial tsunami anywhere near the damage it would have wreaked had it been anyone else at the helm, went unrecognised and unsung.

And he had had enough. This deliberate and beggarly behaviour would change when those at the top of the heap realised that it was he alone who stood between them and an abysmal monetary fiasco.

It really had been laughingly simple to booby-trap his own economic architecture; to insert deliberate miscalculations into the massively soaring financial strategies that not one in a million would be able to comprehend, and yet which flowed from his exceptional mind with the ease of waves upon a beach. And only _he_ knew where these fiscal time-bombs were; it was only _his_ mind that would be able to unravel and re-set the endless sine-wave of hurtling global interactions in order to prevent an economic collapse of such calamitous proportions that Britain would not only be buried beneath its own financial ruin for _decades_ , but which would very quickly threaten to bring down Europe. After Europe, America and the remainder of the Western world would quickly follow.

It was child's play really, and his smile grew as he instigated the last few touches to the plan that would bring down the British nation and the House of Windsor with it.

As the final changes were input and saved, Huth-Gardiner's index finger hung, poised over the _Enter_ key on his laptop. This was it. Once this decision was implemented, it would be impossible for anyone other than himself to undo what had been done.

With a quiet chuckle, Hugh Huth-Gardiner pressed the key and sat back, his laughter growing in scale and volume until his eyes were damp with tears.

###

Torches held in such a parallel manner that they acted as headlights of a car, the Holmes brothers strode determinedly through the dark tunnel. Though no words had been spoken between them since they had taken after the trail of blood, judging by the shared set of their jaws, they moved with only one thought between them.

Lestrade used his long legs to great effect as he stamped along after them, while John and Mycroft's remaining security watched over Cate as she tried to match the unexpected turn of speed. Fortunately, the floor here had evened out and the swift pace would not be as risky as it had been back in the tributary channels.

The tunnel they were in right now had become much wider and somewhat loftier, the sound of their rapid footsteps echoing around as they splashed through the thin layer of water and debris underfoot.

"Told you it'd be alright," John flicked his torch partly up the wall to his left, but the bricks along here appeared sound; there were no obvious cracks, at least. "It won't be long before we find the twins and can all get the hell out of this place," he smiled faintly. "The kids will probably be hungry and cold, so the sooner we're all out, the better, I think."

"What about Casper?" Cate had long since stopped thinking about where she was putting her feet. "If she's badly hurt, what can you do? Can we get the ambulance people down here?"

"We can have any necessary emergency personnel in these tunnels within ten to fifteen minutes, depending on where we end up and how sophisticated we want to be about it," the silent Provost spoke for the first time since the two groups had _rendezvoused_. "Emergency paramedics have been on stand-by since we entered the tunnels and will be able to enter at whatever exit we say as soon as we know where they need to be," he paused. "The army engineers have also broken through into the collapse beneath the university buildings," he added. "They report no casualties have been found, though they're sending a squad of men down to the junction at Holborn just to be absolutely sure nobody doubled-back."

"These phones _are_ brilliant, aren't they?" John smiled over his shoulder. "Wonder if Mycroft will let me and Sherlock keep one when we get out of here?"

Almost running to keep up with the forward party, the sight of the three men standing around the opening to another tunnel heading south brought Cate's heart up into her throat again. What had they found?

Hearing the footsteps, Mycroft turned to her, a small roll of white paper in his fingers. "They're all alive; the children are fine although Casper is hurt," he said, handing her the paper where the scrawled words took a few second to sink in and make any sense.

"It appears they've had to continue along this eastward tunnel as Mycroft's security person is clearly too injured to climb over these," Sherlock flashed his torch over the large concrete blocks obstructing the entrance to the southern route. "They're moving on towards St Pauls and Cheapside," he added, "although there are several northerly exits along the way, I suspect they won't have travelled very far from this point."

"Not with the amount of blood that woman's been losing along the way," John offered his medical opinion. "I'm frankly amazed she's managed to come this far if she's as injured as the signs suggest."

"Only one way to find out then, isn't there?" Greg's teeth flashed white in the reflected torchlight as he headed off along the tunnel. "You lot coming, or are you going to stand there nattering for the rest of the day?"

Mycroft was on the Londoner's heels in an instant, with Sherlock and now John immediately behind. If the twins and their security guard were likely to be close, then he would need to be with them before the woman attempted to move or do anything that might worsen her condition.

" _Blythe! Jules!_ " the sound of Mycroft's raised voice was something of a shock after the muffled silence of their travels through London's underground labyrinth. " _Where are you?_ " But there was no response.

They ran on for another minute before Mycroft shouted again.

This time, there was an answer.

" _Daddy!_ " Jules' voice echoed back, a call immediately echoed by his sister.

Cate felt her adrenaline rocket as she rushed forward, almost colliding with John as he turned to catch her.

" _Breathe_ , Cate," he said, after one look at her face. "They're here and they're okay, so breathe deep and calm down; they'll need you to be calm."

Nodding frantically, Cate sucked down several shaking breaths before she pushed her way forward to where Mycroft and Sherlock were standing in front of a wide stone shelf, each man with their arms wrapped around a child, Casper lying prone between them, John already reaching for her pulse.

" _Mummy!_ " Blythe was standing on the edge of the shelf, one arm clutching Sherlock, the other outstretched as Cate threw herself towards her daughter's small body, hugging hard and tight. There were no words yet, finding them unharmed was enough. Words would come later.

"Mummy?" Jules looked over his father's shoulder as Mycroft lowered him back onto his feet, reluctant to let the child from his grasp until he saw Cate's face. Wiping a hand across his eyes, Mycroft held Jules steady as the boy reached for his mother.

Taking one arm away from Blythe, Cate wrapped it around her son, crushing him to her as she held her children impossibly close. She could feel the burn of tears fill her eyes and for the first time, was grateful for the dark.

Almost half-a-minute passed in overwrought silence as the three stood in a single mass of tangled arms. Finally breathing hard, Cate lifted her head and relaxed her grip as she looked around.

Mycroft was haggard with relief, Sherlock was expressionless, hands in his pockets, watching the family reunion; John was still bent over the unconscious Casper and both Lestrade and Provost were on their phones, speaking quietly and rapidly.

"How is she?" Cate was able now to focus on the motionless figure over which John and Provost were stooping.

"Not too good," John pulled several handfuls of stuff from his pockets; things he had summarily liberated from the clinic's stores as he'd left earlier. "Bump on the head; nasty compound fracture of the left arm, although the bleeding is mostly stopped. God knows what sort of microbes are flying around down here; we need to get her into surgery in a hospital as soon as possible before infection sets in," the last words directed towards Mycroft.

Bending over the still-unconscious woman, John directed Provost to shine his torch at her leg where her jeans had ripped, revealing a patch of thigh. Wiping the spot with an alcohol swab, in the next second he was able to administer an intramuscular shot of morphine. Within seconds, Casper's body was perceptibly more relaxed.

"Where are we?" Cate hadn't thought about their actual location before now, her thoughts too full of the children. "Are we close to an exit?"

Sherlock looked grim. "We have less than two hours to get everyone out, meaning we don't have time to retrace our steps," he said. "The map clearly showed this location was at the confluence of several major tunnels heading up from the river; so this is probably one of the very worst places to be when the Thames rises through the tunnels," he added. "It's not safe to stay anywhere near here, nor do we have sufficient time to make it back to the university, especially now that we'll also be carrying the children and a casualty," he paused. "We need a closer exit."

"The nearest known exit on this northern tunnel," Provost waved his torch at the central opening of the three tunnels behind them. "Is at Pentonville, which means a walk of at least two to three hours, assuming there's no blockage of the passage," he said. "We may be able to get far enough up the tunnel that the flooding won't reach."

"No," Mycroft returned the steel phone to his coat pocket. "Doctor, is my employee able to be safely moved?" he looked at John, waiting.

"As long as we can keep her arm immobilised, I haven't been able to find any signs of internal injury yet, but it's pretty dark down here and I can't be sure," he said. "But yes; if we need to get her out, then we can move her with care."

"Then we shall continue heading east," Mycroft nodded. "Towards St Pauls."

"There's a north-heading tunnel there," Sherlock looked inward to the map-image imprinted upon his brain. "Although we'd be cutting it fine to traverse the distance and make good our exit in time."

"We're not going north," Mycroft reached across to where his children were still wrapped in Cate's grasp, unpeeling Jules from the tangled embrace. He lifted the boy effortlessly into his arms, holding him close. "We're going directly east; I have already arranged to be met by medical services and an ambulance," he added. "At my new offices."

"But the only exit east of St Pauls is beneath the Bank of England," Sherlock followed his brother's actions, extracting an uncomplaining Blythe from her mother's grasp, waiting until the child had wrapped her arms tightly around his neck before lifting her to his chest where he held her safe with a long arm. She clung to him like a limpet.

"Exactly," Mycroft nodded, turning to John. "Doctor Watson, are you able to manage the conveyance of Casper between you and the Inspector and Provost?" he asked. "If you are still sure she is able to be moved?"

"The morphine will keep her unconscious and relaxed and she's not going to be aware of anything for the next couple of hours," John looked at Greg and Mycroft's other security person. "I've managed to restrain her arm by binding it entirely to her side, so it's not going to be flopping about while we carry her, but we need to get her to hospital before she regains awareness or she's going to be in an awful lot of pain."

"I'll take first shift," Lestrade reached down and lifted the limp and unconscious woman gently into his arms. "Let's get cracking then," he said, the usual grin back on his face. "Before the tide comes in."

###

They were on the point of leaving the Bank when the call from Mycroft came through. His requirements were a little unexpected, though as always, clear and precise, yet Anthea's eyebrows were somewhat raised by the time she ended the conversation. Turning to Vaughn-Williams, she gave him a speculative look.

"I need the police, an ambulance and emergency rescue personnel," she nodded thoughtfully. "And possibly the army," she added. "But definitely the police."

The MI5 operative sat on the corner of Mycroft's desk and looked curious. "Arresting anyone I know?"

"Not arresting anyone," Anthea looked fractionally arch. "Though I might be involved in a killing."

Nigel Vaughn-Williams wasn't completely sure she was joking, not after it had been made clear to him that this woman was Holmes's right hand. "Killing?" he asked cautiously.

"Two birds with one stone," Anthea picked up Mycroft's desk phone. "Do you want to do the honours, or shall I?"

###

There were an increasing number of small tunnels heading south to the river as they continued east, likely because when the sewers and drains had been constructed, the East End of London had been the most populous and had therefore required the greatest number of facilities to cope. The problem was, this also made their current position even more precarious than it had been. It was now after eight o'clock and they had less than an hour to get everyone out before the cold waters of the Thames were forced to rush through these enclosed spaces. While heading further east, the tunnels also veered south, leading them perilously close to the Thames. If the bore were to come early, there would be nowhere for any of them to run.

"My turn, I think," Provost tapped Greg on the shoulder and waited until they had been able to move Casper carefully from one to the other. She was still deeply asleep, a fact for which John was profoundly grateful. The less she knew of the proceedings the better it would be.

Sherlock was leading the little group, a step ahead of Mycroft, when Blythe started telling him about their adventures.

"And then Casper shouted through the door and when we told her not to come through because the wall was going to fall on her head, but she came through anyway," she paused thoughtfully. "And then the wall fell on her head, but she was very brave and didn't cry or anything even though she went unconscious for seven minutes and forty-three seconds and Jules had to tie a tornykit around her arm with his torch string to stop it bleeding because we didn't have any rope, you see," she explained, as if it all made perfect sense.

Holding his niece close and warm against his chest, Sherlock was, in truth, only half-listening to the child's prattle, although her voice suggested she was being deadly earnest.

"Weren't you afraid?" his deep voice murmured in the torch-lit darkness.

"Oh no," Blythe shook her head against her uncle's shoulder. "Jules and I weren't frightened at all, because we knew it was going to be dark and scary which is why Jules brought his torch and I took Nanny Nora's chocolate."

"And my pass-key?"

He felt her grow still against him.

"I was honestly going to give it back," she said, in a slow voice. "I only borrowed it like you borrowed Daddy's magic card."

There was a small but meaningful cough from Mycroft's general direction.

"But you had the torch because you knew you were going to be in the dark?" Sherlock confirmed suspicions that the initial getting lost part had been elements of the twins' larger plan. Whatever that might have been.

"Yes. First of all, we were going to sit in the underneath car-park until we had been there long enough that we could show everyone how brave we were when we came back after being all by ourselves in the dark, but then I found the map of the tunnels and you told us about your magic key. We decided that tunnels were probably a lot more scary than a stinky car park and it would make us look even braver."

"Why would you want people to see how brave you could be all by yourselves?" Sherlock's voice was soft and persuasive as he made a mental note never to leave the twins in future without a thorough search of their persons for contraband items, possibly even items belonging to him.

Blythe was silent. She lifted her head to peer at her father, a half-step behind with Jules pressed against his chest. Mycroft saw her peeping at him over his brother's shoulder and raised his eyebrows.

"Because we wanted everyone to know how grown-up we were," Jules ducked down inside his father's collar, his words partly muffled against the coat's material.

"And why did you want everyone to think you were grown up?" Mycroft's voice was relaxed, comforting.

"We wanted to be grown up so that ..."

"Yes?"

"So that you would let us go to school."

Mycroft was quite proud of his reflexes at that moment as they betrayed him in neither step nor heartbeat although both were momentarily affected. Cate's sudden intake of breath had been loud enough for the both of them. "You want to go to school and you thought I would say no?"

" _Mmhmm_ ," Jules was still embedded in his father's coat. "We heard you talking to mummy and saying that we were still _babies_."

"So we thought that if you saw how really really brave and grown-up we were, you would say yes," Blythe was using Sherlock's shoulder as cover in case of parental crossness.

"I think it might be time for our first serious family discussion, when we get home," two paces behind, Cate was caught between relief that the twins were safe and that they hadn't actually killed Casper, and maddening infuriation that they were so reckless, as young as they were, to play such a _dangerous_ game. But now was not the time to unburden her feelings in front of the twins.

Mycroft, however, was a different matter.

"This is the Holmes side of the family coming out," she announced to any husbands who might be in the vicinity. "Utterly insane, the bloody lot of you."

The immediate absence of any retaliatory strike from either of the adult Holmes's less than three paces ahead confirmed her theory. Her satisfaction was premature.

"Unlike the time you almost burned down a Spanish hotel," Sherlock strode on.

"Or perhaps, the incident of the wager at the Diogenes?" Mycroft didn't miss a beat. "Or the madness of your martial arts?"

"Or the disagreement you had with the gun-wielding ETA terrorist," Sherlock's head turned slightly towards his brother.

"Or indeed, the time you ran away from home only to end up confronting a warlord?" Mycroft pulled no punches, as he caught his brother's eye.

"Or even the time when you flew to Scotland _alone_ to spy on a member of the Scottish aristocracy?" Sherlock and Mycroft walked side-by-side and Cate was certain they had shared a conspiratorial glance.

"Yes, _alright_ ," she sighed, gritting her teeth in the dark. Impossible to win an argument against both brothers. "Your point is made."

"Mummy ran away from home?" Jules' voice was full of wonder as he lifted his head from Mycroft's shoulder in order to stare at his mother, eyes wide and unblinking.

"Mummy did _not_ run away from home," Cate informed her offspring tartly. "Daddy was being incredibly unreasonable, so mummy went and ..." she paused.

Well, yes, there was that, she supposed.

There was a busy flashing of torches behind her as John took Casper into his arms for the next leg of the journey. "How long?" he said, settling the sleeping woman closer against him.

"According to the map, we would have crossed beneath New Change Street a short while ago and are now heading for the intersection between Bread Street and Cheapside Road," Sherlock called back over his shoulder. "Means we're less than half-a-mile from the Bank of England exit."

"That's brilliant," Lestrade had had enough of these tunnels to last him a good while. All he wanted now was to make sure everyone managed to get out without him having to make a song and dance about the situation.

"Unfortunately, time is not on our side," Sherlock added. "We've got less than fifteen minutes before the bore hits the Thames Barrier and all these small tunnels leading down to the river become boiling vortices."

"Then let's make the best speed we can," Mycroft took the lead, striding out as swiftly as he could, given the increasingly tortuous pathway ahead.

As more and more side-passages joined this main thoroughfare from both sides, the way underfoot had become unpredictable and uneven; several of the low-lying southerly passages already discharging cold river-water into the main tunnel as the Thames rose. The increasingly high water-levels adding to the general difficulties of walking and slowing the group even more.

It was going to be a race to the exit.

###

The uniformed guard sitting quietly at the Bank's main reception had just come on shift and was about to open his evening newspaper and thermos flask when several levels of hell broke loose.

The phone rang with an internal buzz, but as he reached over to answer it, the main door to the Bank was flung inwards and a significant number of uniformed police-officers came stampeding in.

"Police emergency," one young officer eyed him impatiently. "The basement, which way?" he demanded, speaking into his shoulder-radio at the same time. " _Which way?!_ " he repeated with some bite, as the guard looked at the arriving horde in dumb surprise.

Turning towards the back of the spacious entry-hall, he pointed to a set of stairs off to one corner. "Down two levels and then there's nowhere else to go," he said. "There's only the old file rooms and service facilities down there," he added.

"That's okay, we're going to go right through the file rooms," the officer grinned, heading towards the rear of the hall at a smart clip.

"Do you need me to help you?" the guard shouted after them.

"Stay where you are and don't move; we'll speak to you later," the officer shouted back right as he headed down the stairs.

Watching, speechless at the commotion, the guard realised he was still holding the phone. He lifted it to his ear, still staring after the tail-end of the procession as they vanished down the back stairs.

"Hello, Reception," he said, his voice tentative.

"Oh hello," Anthea's voice was clear in the resumed silence. "I was about to tell you to expect some guests, but I see there's no longer any need; please do whatever they say," the phone went dead.

Not really sure what was happening, but fairly certain it was nothing good, the guard lifted the phone to his ear once more and dialled up an outside line.

"Yes?" after three rings, the answering voice sounded cool and distant.

"Dunno if you needed to know this, sir," the guard spoke quietly, looking back towards the rear staircase to make sure he was not overheard. "But there's just been a whole load of coppers come running through the Bank and they've headed down to the old file rooms in the basement," he said. "Said it was an emergency."

The man at the other end of the call was silent. "Did anyone say what kind of emergency it was?" his voice was cautious.

"Nah, only that they were going to go right through the file rooms, but I dunno what for," the guard added. "The cops said I was to stay where I was and not to move, as somebody would be coming to speak with me later."

"Not to worry, I'm sure it's nothing," he said. "Inform me if there are any further developments," the call disconnected and the guard turned back to his newspaper and thermos with a slow sigh. It was all a bit above his pay-grade.

In his cold and remote office, Hugh Huth-Gardiner felt his heart speed slightly. Why was there a declared police emergency at the Bank of England? Why were there uniformed officers going through the old files? He had thought arranging for Mycroft Holmes to be relocated to the Bank where he could be watched, would have crimped the man's activities, but apparently not. But not even Holmes could possibly know about the sabotage of the British economy; not even _he_ had yet been able to see the results of the changes ...

Steepling his fingers and resting them against him lips, the mad genius pondered the possibilities.

###

Lestrade's call to her private mobile made little sense; he was in the sewers under the Bank of England? At this time of night? Sally Donovan was already half-way into her coat, asking if he needed backup, only to be told _yes_ , but not from her, and could she reroute the call to emergency services. Deciding that her DI would welcome assistance other than that of whoever might be on-call tonight, she threw her car into gear and headed swiftly through the Elephant and Castle, gunning for London Bridge.

###

The water was up to their knees now and their efforts at speed were doubly frustrated by the force of the inpouring waters, and the awareness that time was not their friend. They had just now passed beneath another large oval plaque bearing the words PRINCE'S STREET.

"How long?" John handed Casper back to Lestrade and raced forward to see if any of the Holmes needed assistance. Cate was finding the deepening water hard-going but was still managing to keep up although she was starting to show the early effects of exhaustion.

Neither Mycroft nor Sherlock were flagging; having a small child's arms clutching you tightly was an effective incentive to keep going.

"Five minutes," Sherlock gritted out. "But we should be able to see the exit into the passageways beneath the Bank at any moment," he said. "Prince's Street is right beside the building," he added, his torch scanning and rescanning the walls ahead. "I can't understand why there is no door."

Provost had his phone against an ear. "Our people are already in the basement of the Bank with a number of emergency personnel," he announced. "I am told they are having to clear away a number of wall partitions in order to reach the inner entrance to the tunnel."

"ETA?" Mycroft was deadly calm, despite the imminent danger to everything he held dear.

"Two minutes, sir," Provost scooted past the elder Holmes and did his best to run ahead, despite the resistance of the water, his torch flickering wildly. "It has to be around here somewhere."

And suddenly, there was a door.

The same dirty, rusty-brown colour as the closely cemented bricks, the only thing that made it visible in the torch-beams was the circular shadow behind the large ring-turn handle as the lights passed across it.

" _There!_ " Provost's finger stabbed into the dark.

About four feet above the floor of the tunnel, there were several slimy-looking iron rungs stapled to the wall beneath it, clearly to facilitate entry.

"I'll take her," Cate held her arms out to Sherlock who passed Blythe back to her mother without a word. Mycroft held Jules with one arm and rested the other at his wife's shoulders, sharing what support he was able despite the palpable tension.

Lestrade walked up behind them, his arms full of the unconscious Casper. "Won't be long now," he said cheerfully as Jules looked up at him from Mycroft's shoulder "Bet you two'll sleep well tonight."

"We sleep well every night," Jules frowned slightly. "We have nice beds."

"I meant that you'd be extra tired tonight after all the walking you've done today," Greg sighed, wondering how, even for a moment, he had forgotten the twins' parentage.

"Yes, that's true," Jules nodded. "But these tunnels are very exciting and I don't want to go to bed until I get to see all the police and their cars and the flashing lights," the child grinned widely. "So I don't actually want to go to bed just yet, thank you."

"I just meant that ..." Lestrade sought the right words.

"Nor do I," Blythe added her tuppenceworth then stopped suddenly, looking back down the tunnel. "What's _that_ , mummy?" she asked in a strange tone.

The adults turned as one, staring back down into the long dark. There was a white frothing heading towards them at real speed.

The Thames Bore had arrived.

###

He didn't usually permit himself to be uneasy, but the current situation was so important to the rest of his plan, that Huth-Gardiner gave into the urgent desire to revisit the work he'd done online and, despite his brain telling him not to do it, logged on, waiting impatiently for all the security gateways to authorise his presence.

 _There_. He stared at all the work he'd done, the myriad tiny changes he'd keyed in, with his own hands, not an hour before.

There was absolutely no sign of them ... it was as if he had not even logged on today... his heart thudded slowly as he tried to work his way through the possibilities of the situation. Had he been in error before and not actively saved the amendments he had made? No, for he remembered the illicit thrill he experienced as he had knowingly consigned the British economy to the scrap-heap of Europe. He had _definitely_ entered the new computations, changing the face of the British economy and monetary system forever. How then, was this situation possible? Only two other individuals in the entire nation had the same level of access as he; and _any_ action by either of them would have been flagged immediately. There had been no such notification; it couldn't have been that. But if not, then what? How? More importantly perhaps ... _who?_

Biting back his still-rising disbelief and frustration, Huth-Gardiner took a calming breath and returned to the initial screen of data-input, preparing to do the entire thing all over again. Given that everything he needed to do was a result of his own deliberations, he knew the precise and exact steps that would be needed to recreate the fiscal havoc he believed he'd already put in place.

Raising his fingers above the keyboard, almost as the conductor of a symphonic orchestra might prior to the opening bars of a major work, he paused.

In that instant, his authorisation failed and he was summarily returned to the logon page of the system he'd designed himself.

_What in hell's name was going on?_

###

Escorted by Neville Vaughn-Williams, Anthea made her way down to the main Reception of the Bank; the guard turning as he heard the quiet tap of her heels on the hard marble floor.

"Yes, Ma'm?" he stood, uncertain of protocol here, but preferring to err on the side of caution.

"This gentleman is from MI5," she indicated Vaughn-Williams with the faintest flick of an eyebrow. "He is here to ensure that nothing untoward occurs at this establishment this evening, do you understand?"

Not understanding in the slightest, the guard merely nodded, hoping they weren't going to ask any questions.

Waiting until they too had vanished down the rear staircase into the basement, the reception guard lifted the phone and dialled the very private number once again.

"You wanted to know if there were any developments?" he asked, his words barely more than a whisper. "There's a man here from MI5 and the woman who works with Mycroft Holmes, an' they've both just gone downstairs to the file rooms where the police are at," he murmured. "Thought you should know."

There was no response, no sign that anyone had even listened to the words. The call disconnected almost instantly.

###

The water was already up to the level of their knees even before the white-capped surge that seemed to fill half the tunnel's height.

"Brace against the wall!" Mycroft shouted, pushing Cate against the curved brickwork in leaning into the soaking masonry himself, one arm around his son, the other around his wife and daughter. Lestrade thanked God that Casper was still out of all this as he likewise angled his body into the cold, clammy structure of the tunnel.

The wave was almost upon them, just as Sherlock and John managed to drag their way across, grabbing on and pressing even harder into the wall, like human spiders, clinging to the inner curve of the Victorian sewer. With a solid shove, the leading wave was on them and swiftly past, a line of detritus leading the way into the darkness beyond; the median level of water in the tunnel now at least up to their waists. It was freezing and almost impossible to see, but the surge passed and they were all still standing.

"Get that bloody door open!" Mycroft shouted at Provost who was perched at the top of the rusty iron rungs, his entire bodyweight leaning into to wide screw-ring that dogged the door closed.

"It's rusted tight," Provost gasped, heaving bodily on the wide ring. "There's no way I can shift it alone. I need leverage."

"Try this!" Sherlock waited until a spar of wood floated past him before grabbing it and struggled back to the door. Threading the heavy stake through the door's round closing mechanism, he and Provost took an end each and heaved in an anti-clockwise direction, hoping that the additional torque might be sufficient to crack the decades-old rust.

The door mechanism started to give until the spar cracked and splintered, throwing both men down into the deepening water. It seemed that nothing they could do from this side of the door would be of any use; everything depended now upon action on the other side.

" _Hang on!_ " John shouted as a second wall of white hurtled towards them at an incredible speed; the noise of its roar deafening as the wave crested and passed over them. The suction pulling Cate away from the wall an along in its remorseless grip, her loss prevented only by Sherlock's swift arm as he grabbed down and pulled her into the rungs beside him.

Freezing cold, exhausted and fully aware that the next wave might be just too much to survive, the little group clung to the tunnel wall and waited for salvation.


	10. Chapter 10

_The Prize – Safe – Angelo's – The Lap of the Gods – Crystalline Structures – An Evening of Discovery – A Killer Revealed – Progress – Deadlier Than the Male – The Final Twist – A Quiet House – The Adin Side – Westminster._

#

#

Termination with extreme prejudice of whoever installed these cubicles and shelving was the universal desire circulating around the basement of the Bank of England. Over twenty of the things had already demolished, but the way to the half-seen iron-riveted door set into the far wall was still blocked. And now there were too many people getting in the way of too many others. Something needed to be done.

Anthea took a deep breath. "I want the two strongest men out here," she said, her voice slicing through the general hubbub. "Don't be shy," she added as everyone looked at her. "I rarely bite."

Three large uniformed police officers, each easily over six feet tall, with rolled up sleeves and sweat on their collective brows stepped forward to the faint heckling of their comrades.

There was little difference between them. "Then I'll have all three of you," Anthea met their eyes as she turned and pointed towards the half-seen doorway. "See that through there?"

 _There_ lay approximately twenty feet away through ranks of narrow but solid shelves and walls designed to hold box upon box of old paper files and documents.

"Yes'm," the three nodded.

"A thousand pounds each if you can get to that door in two minutes," she said, making a show of checking her watch.

A large grin covered the face of the oldest, the few silver hairs at his brow giving him a certain rakish style. "Throw in dinner and I'll carry you through myself," he said flexing enviable biceps.

"Less show, more go, if you please," Anthea kept her face straight but her eyes assessed him thoughtfully.

"Right Lads," he spat on his hands and grasped the thick handle of the nearest sledge-hammer. "You heard the lady. Let's be having this stuff out of the way."

The whistling sound as the heavy hammer zipped through the air had half the spectators ducking, as the other two men got in on the act, unwilling to be shown up by someone considered their senior.

Smiling, Anthea hid the curve of her lips behind her fingers, as she stepped back, not in the least to get a better view of the heaving musculature, but more to avoid the suddenly flying pieces of shelves. Of course.

Whether it was the new sense of competition or the fact that each of the three men knew they had a fascinated audience, or even for the prize, was unknown, but they had half the distance cleared in less than sixty-seconds. The noise of flying debris did not abate until, with a final heartfelt groan and one last thump, the very last shelf shuffled off its mortal coil.

It looked like a bomb had gone off, but the old door was finally accessible.

"Get it open _now_ ," Anthea checked her watch again. It was two minutes past nine. They were late.

###

The next wave of the bore would arrive any moment and there was nothing they could do except hold on. Mycroft hoped it would be enough. About to say something comforting to Cate, a sudden blast of golden yellow light radiated down into the tunnel as the door finally opened from the inside.

" _The children_ ," he directed, as Sherlock found the now-submerged rungs and climbed halfway up, waiting until first Blythe and then Jules was handed across, bundling them through the doorway to safety.

"Casper next," Cate refused to budge until the unconscious woman had been most carefully manoeuvred up and pulled out of sight by a variety of hands at the entrance.

"Now you, my love," Mycroft was about to pass her into Sherlock's arms when the third surge struck, wrenching her away until Sherlock only had a grasp of one wrist.

" _Mycroft!_ " Cate's terrified scream had both brothers grab onto her coat, dragging her back and holding her immobile until the immense force of the swell had passed and gone.

" _Quickly!_ Inside!" Mycroft almost lifted her the rest of the way. With a swift look around, Sherlock threw himself into the wide-open doorway, a hand outstretched for Mycroft who was nearest.

Within seconds, all members of the party had clambered up the slippery iron ladder and stood, shedding water all over the floor of one of the most iconic buildings in the world.

"Welcome back, sir," Anthea handed out large sections of soft white fabric.

"Tablecloths?" Sherlock was already drying his hair.

"Improvised towels, Mr Holmes," she smiled brightly. "Other than Casper, does anyone require urgent medical attention?"

"She needs to get to a hospital straight away ..." John was just about to insist on the young woman's immediate care when Anthea held up a hand.

"Casper is already _enroute_ to a private hospital and will arrive in less than ..." she checked her wristwatch. "Seven minutes where a full surgical team are standing by to receive her, doctor," she added. "No need to fret about your patient, I promise."

"And the other matters?" Mycroft was still mopping himself down with a ruined length of fabric.

"All in hand, sir," his assistant handed him a fresh tablecloth. "Everything proceeds as planned with some interesting developments which can wait until you have showered and changed."

"A shower is not necessary ..."

"You are _so_ wrong about that," Cate spoke up from where she was wrapping the children in bright orange blankets brought down by the paramedics. "If it's not World War Three, then it can wait until we all get home, clean up and get some warm food inside us," she paused, standing. "Mycroft, your children need you to be with them for a while."

Pausing with the tablecloth still wrapped half-way around his head, Mycroft looked down at the twins, each swathed in multiple layers of, hopefully washable, blankets.

"How are you two feeling now?" despite the wet pull of his trousers, he managed to squat down to better meet their eyes.

Blythe giggled. "You look like you're wearing a _kaffiyeh_ ," she pointed at the pile of white fabric.

"It's more like a _sudra_ ," Jules tilted his head to get a better view. "Or even a _ghutrah_ ," he added. "Daddy needs some rope to hold it in place better or he might frighten his camel if it flaps in the wind."

Well, that answered that question.

"Since it would be extraordinarily difficult to get a camel in here, you need have few concerns for my safety," he said, standing and meeting Cate's eyes. "I believe your children are mocking my headgear," he said mildly.

"I think it's rather stylish; you might consider it for the office," Cate was shaky with relief and barely felt the cold and wet, although the smell was harder to ignore. "But I want them out of these soggy things quickly."

"Then we'll head home although I'll have to return to the office later," pulling out his phone, functional despite the dunking, Mycroft made the necessary arrangements.

"Are we done here?" Sherlock threw a soggy lump of material onto the growing pile. He knelt down beside Blythe and held out a hand.

Looking at him with a faint pout, she wriggled fingers down into her wet clothes and pulled the long brass key out of her coat. "I really was going to give it back, you know," she said, handing it over.

"I know you were," Sherlock slid the key into an inner pocket. "But you should know how to open locks without a key so we'll discuss that when you have completed whatever lengthy prison-term your father will undoubtedly set for you," he stepped away, a half-smile curving his mouth.

"Thank you, Sherlock," Cate had both arms around him before he realised what was happening and stooped to accommodate her, his hands lightly on her back. "Thank you for everything," she added quietly, pressing her forehead into the bend of his neck. "You helped save their lives and there aren't enough words ..."

"I know," he said. "I know the words," he added. "And don't worry about the twins, favourite Sister-in-law," he whispered. "I'll always look after them."

"Oh, _Sherlock_ ," Cate was close to tears, as his arms closed in a brief squeeze before he let go, standing up and apart, his face back in its usual impassive state.

Cate turned to John, flinging her arms around him, rocking him like one of the children.

"Yeah, I know too," he smiled the words against her ear. "And you know that I'll always be there for them as well," he added softly.

"I love the both of you," Cate felt tears burn hot as she breathed in John's damp woollen aroma. He smelled like wet goat. "God, you _need_ a shower," she gasped, laughing against his shoulder.

"You're not exactly awash in violets and lily of the valley," he grinned, the pad of his thumb wiping a stray tear from her cheek as he looked down at the indescribably filthy twins, staring back up at him with big eyes. "Don't upset your mother," he told them, eyebrows raised. There were two identical nods.

"We'll be off then," he said, glancing at Mycroft who'd just returned the phone to his coat.

"Thank you, John," Mycroft looked between the doctor and Sherlock." And to you, brother," he added. "It has been an eventful day."

"I would like to revisit these tunnels at some point in the near future," Sherlock nodded. "They tell some fascinating stories."

John clapped the younger Holmes on the arm. "Then you can come back down here by yourself," the blonde man grinned. "Bags I get the shower first."

Greg Lestrade was a little way apart, currently engaging with Sergeant Donovan who was advising him, in no uncertain terms, of her feelings at not being contacted before. She could have helped.

"Yeah, you could," Lestrade nodded. "But this was family business and everyone knows you don't always get along with ..." he nodded towards Sherlock's disappearing back.

"Sherlock's a pain in the arse, but I don't dislike him as much as I did," she said. "Probably a bit of envy in there somewhere that I don't really want to look at too closely."

"A word, if I might, Sergeant Donovan, please?" Cate looked between them to Greg.

"Of course," Sally backed away to talk with the uniforms still clearing up.

"Thank you, Greg," Cate stood on her toes and planted a soft kiss on his cheek. "Of all people, you didn't need any of this and here you are, freezing cold and stinking of river."

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world," the tall Londoner slung an arm around her shoulders. "Besides which," he grinned. "Now your husband owes me a favour that I will definitely be calling upon in the future," Lestrade looked appropriately cunning.

"I'm sure we'll be able to discuss this more reasonably in the light of day, Inspector," Mycroft offered his hand as he walked over. "Your assistance was invaluable, my thanks."

Provost waved.

"The car's waiting," Mycroft looked at Cate's face, tear-streaked and grimy. His heart gave its usual little frolic and he smiled.

"Won't be a tick," she headed to one final person she needed to thank as he was about to leave the shattered basement. "Provost," she called, the young man turned, waiting.

"Before you go, I wanted you to know your efforts and Casper's will not go unrecognised," she said. "Both of you jumped in, quite literally and without a word of complaint," she paused. "Your efforts will be properly recognised." Leaning in, Cate brushed the man's cheek softly with her lips. "Thank you."

His face developing a faint pink tinge, Provost nodded at his boss. "Permission to trade shifts with Zero, sir?" he said. "She's waiting up by the car."

"Indeed," Mycroft nodded back. "Please do. Return to duty when you've had a decent rest."

"Sir," Provost turned to Cate and smiled. "Ma'm," he turned and was gone.

"Really, my love," Mycroft was amused. "Kissing my security? What will the neighbours say?"

"You're such an arse," Cate murmured as she bent down to find Blythe's hand and helped the child to her feet. "Come on, you two. Time for a hot bath and some soup and then bed, I think."

Securing Jules' fingers in his own, Mycroft followed.

###

After an indulgently hot shower, John felt pretty good. So good in fact, he called Helen Madly, London Zoo's premier Arachnologist and cancelled date.

"I'm sorry for tonight," he said. "It was an emergency and just now over," he added. "Any chance we could try again sometime? Maybe next week?"

"It's not that big deal," Madly admitted. "I'm just about to leave work myself, in fact."

"Have you eaten?" John wondered out loud, "because I haven't and I'm starving," his stomach growled in agreement. "It might not be the most organised of dates, but it's not all that late and I know a great little Italian place where you don't need to book and they serve really decent chicken and beef."

"Proper lasagne?" Helen's voice sounded vaguely interested.

"Very proper," John grinned. "It's not far from you either," he added. "You could be there before me," he rattled off Angelo's address. "Give them my name if you get there first. I'll be there in about ten minutes; just got to put on some clothes."

"You phone all your dates in the nude, Doctor Watson?" she was laughing.

He nearly made a joke about only doing that for the lucky ones but caught himself in time. " _Different_ clothes," he grinned. "See you in a bit."

Emerging from the bathroom wrapped in his robe and wielding a towel on his now clean hair, Sherlock looked thoughtful. "Would that be truly Madly deeply, by any chance?" he threw the damp towel onto the settee.

"It would indeed," John nodded, satisfied that not everything had gone to hell this evening. "Meeting her at Angelo's in ten minutes."

"Is that entirely wise?" Sherlock flopped into his chair. "You barely know the woman."

"Which, if you had ever tried it yourself, you would realise it the actual purpose of a _date_ ," John pulled clean socks onto his feet and hunted for his shoes. His old blue jacket was next as he checked his wallet for funds.

"You recall my comments about the carnivorous nature of certain scientists?" Sherlock watched his flatmate over his steepled fingers.

"The exact reason I'm taking her to Angelo's," John patted himself down to ensure he had everything he needed. "Don't wait up," he added, grinning.

The door closed behind him with a soft thud.

###

His office seemed unnaturally warm; he hated it this warm; his brain refused to co-operate when he felt hot like this. Hugh Huth-Gardiner had been at his computer for hours now, even calling IT assistance to clarify his access problems, his _own_ systems. _He_ had designed them, if anyone knew what was wrong with them; it should be him, but apparently not.

"Very sorry sir," the young technology idiot grovelled. "We've had terrible rain up here and there's been a leak in the main server room. We've had to shut more than half the operation down until we can dry the place out and reinitialise everything."

" _Where are my backups, you incompetent idiot?!_ " Huth-Gardiner demanded furiously. "The economic fate of this country depends upon me accessing these programs tonight!" he almost screamed. "I insist upon immediate priority!"

"Yes, sir, we'll do our very best, sir," the unhappy techie ended the call quickly.

Hugh calmed himself, gulping a glass of revoltingly tepid water as he settled his breathing and heart rate. None of these problems was insurmountable. Even if he had to restart his sabotage from scratch, it could be done; the only time-frames at risk were his own.

Huth-Gardiner retook his seat, picking up the phone and calling the Premises department.

"It's bloody _hot_ in my office: fix it _now_ ," he snapped, slamming the phone down without waiting for a response.

He took a series of deep breaths and felt his tension abate; whatever these minor inconveniences were, he could manage them. He foolishly expected perfection from others when he knew this was an unlikely probability. Therefore, it mattered little in the scheme of things if he had to delay his triumph by a few hours; it would still be there. He relaxed, sighing.

It was precisely at that moment the fire alarm volleyed forth, setting the entire building into emergency evacuation and forcing even such as he from his lair.

Hugh Huth-Gardiner wondered which god he had offended.

###

Nora had been waiting in the warm kitchen since receiving Cate's message, with a big pan of vegetable soup on the go and some chunky brown bread in the oven. She took one look at the twins and threw up her hands.

"Where _have_ you been?" she stepped closer to help pull off the wet, clinging clothes, catching a whiff of _eau de sewer_. She grimaced and leaned away. "Dear God above," her nose wrinkled. "No need to tell me, I can guess. Wait while I get a bin-bag for these clothes for they surely aren't going to get cleaned again," she said, returning with a heavy-duty green plastic bag, turning to Mycroft and Cate. "Why don't you two go and get yourself sorted while I take care of the children?" she said. "Dinner's already on and I expect you'll be wanting out of those …" she waved at their clinging, slimy clothes, passing Cate a second bag.

"You have no idea," Cate nodded fervently.

"Then off you trot and leave the twins to me," Nora offered, holding the green plastic towards Blythe and Jules. "Everything in here you pair, then up to the bath. It's nice and hot."

"Are there bubbles?" Blythe's hedonistic little heart loved bubbles.

"Buckets of them," Nora watched as everything went into the bag, leaving two very naked and extraordinarily dirty children standing in the kitchen.

"Race you!" Jules headed out and towards the stairs with his sister on his heels as the adults walked up to the master bedroom with significantly less energy.

"I am so tired," Cate groaned. "You must be too," she peeled off her sodden jacket and dropped it into the plastic bag. Her trainers were next, followed by her jeans and sweatshirt. There was mud everywhere. "Not sure one shower will be enough," she pulled off her underwear; realising sadly it had been the nice lacy set she'd worn to the photographer's.

His own clothing likewise consigned to the bag, Mycroft smiled. "I am an excellent back-washer," his voice dropped playfully.

"I'm muddy all over," Cate matched his tone.

"I'm an excellent all-over washer," Mycroft took his wife's hand and led her to the shower to demonstrate.

###

Sherlock relaxed; he had approximately one hundred and five minutes before any intervention on his part would be required, plenty of time to re-read the recent Swedish paper on nanowire growth control; it was fascinating what might be done at the molecular level. He pulled up the website and was immediately lost in the examination of crystalline structures.

###

Angelo's still had a healthy crowd even by the time John got there, his stomach reminding him he'd not eaten since breakfast. As soon as he showed his face inside the door, Angelo, clearly keeping a watchful eye for his arrival, greeted him with open arms and a sly wink.

"This one is pretty, no?" he elbowed John in the side. "Maybe not as pretty as Sherlock, but hey, live and let live, yes?"

Taking a slow breath, John smiled brightly. "Angelo, I've told you a hundred times, I am not gay. Sherlock is _not_ my boyfriend."

"Not to worry, Doctor Watson," Angelo winked again. "Enjoy your dinner with the pretty lady."

Showing him to a corner table, complete with flickering candle, Angelo smiled knowingly and left them with menus.

"Hi," John took a long look at the woman waiting for him. Without the white lab coat and pinned-back hair, Helen Madly was a good looking thirty-something. Dark, slim and with a light in her intelligent eyes that reminded him a little of Sherlock. There was a lot going on inside that head and he smiled, wondering what it was.

"I am so hungry I could eat this _menu_ ," Helen growled, just as one of Angelo's waiters brought out a plate of hot herb and garlic bread. "Ah, _God_ ," she groaned, sinking her teeth into the crunchy, oil-dripping crust as the fragrance of garlic and thyme filled her senses. "This is _so_ good," she muttered, already taking a second slice.

Not to be outdone, John was a couple of bites into his piece, letting the hot savoury entrée begin to remove the chill of the tunnels. "Don't know about you," he said. "But this is the kind of night I want some decent red wine."

"Brilliant idea," Helen licked her thumb, eyeing a third piece but holding off for the moment. "Something big and rough and robust," she grinned as he raised his eyebrows.

Lifting his hand, John waited for the master himself.

"Yes, Doctor Watson?" Angelo hovered, a questioning look on his face.

"The lady wants something big and rough and robust," he said, waving the wine menu and keeping a straight face. "Do you have anything that fits the bill?"

His features sliding into an expressive grin, Angelo nodded. "I have a classic Pontassieve _chianti_ that will make you weep with joy," he said. " _Weep_."

"Then we'll have some of that," John handed over the card and turned back to smile at Helen.

She laughed back. "I like you, John Watson," she said, nibbling delicately on the crust of her bread. "Despite the spontaneous nature of this evening, I think it might turn out to be a night we both remember."

After Angelo had poured a little of the wine, he swirled the balloon glass and sniffed the dark red liquid, not entirely sure what he was sniffing, only to have his head filled with the sensation of warm hillsides and blackcurrant and flint. It was glorious.

" _Wow_ ," was all he could manage.

"Told you," Angelo looked smug. "Something a bit special, yes?"

"Just pour the stuff," John waited until the man had left them in peace before toasting his guest, the rather exciting, friend-of-spiders, Helen Madly.

"To an evening of discovery," he smiled, sipping the wine.

"To an evening of _science_ ," she tasted the Italian bouquet and closed her eyes, nodding.

"Science?" John moved smoothly into flirt-mode.

"Intimate behaviour patterns between male and female," Helen licked a smear of oil from her finger.

" _Intimate?_ " John leaned forward, swirling the wine in his glass.

"Bonding practices; tactile communication rituals," she said, slowly. "Mating habits."

Taking a large gulp of the superb red, John felt the memory of the tunnels begin to fade.

###

"So catch me up on developments," Lestrade emerged from the men's showers to see a waiting Donovan, arms crossed and an impatient expression on her face. She was dying to tell him something. Looping a fresh tie around his neck, he checked his watch, wondering where the day had gone. Nearly ten already, time to knock-off, surely.

"Got a solid lead on the spider-killings," she said without preamble. "CCTV shows the same person in the vicinity of no less than three crime scenes, although in two of them, the person is too far away to make out much detail and in the third one, which was actually the first murder, the camera never gets a chance at their face, but it's the same person alright."

"And?" Greg knew there was more.

" _And_ , I've had a couple of uniforms chasing down all related surveillance-footage from cameras along the person's apparent route."

" _And?_ " Lestrade stopped, waiting for the punch line.

" _And_ I know where the bastard lives," she grinned. "Want to come with and nick him?"

A wide grin spreading across his face, Lestrade nodded. "You do the honours," he said. "You've done most of the work; I'll be there for back up, yeah?"

Sally Donovan's answering grin spoke volumes.

Lestrade's mobile rang. He sighed, checking the caller ID. It had been less than two hours since they'd both been chest-deep in the Thames bore.

 _Sherlock_.

###

The twins barely managed to stay awake as they ate their soup; eyelids drooping in the warmth. Blythe had a sticky-plaster over a small graze to her hand but both were, amazingly, fine. It was too late to talk to them about their reckless scheme tonight, but tomorrow, Cate promised herself, tomorrow would be a _vastly_ different affair.

After carrying them both up and tucking them into a nest of bedding, Mycroft shook his head as the main light went off. His children may have inherited the Holmes gene for thinking, but they had also picked up the Adin penchant for madness. He smiled a little at that. _Just like their mother_.

"I have to return to work, briefly," he kissed Cate as she waited at the foot of the stairs. "There are a couple of matters requiring resolution and I want to wrap them up this evening."

"Is it going to take long? We need to discuss the twins' little escapade before tomorrow morning to formulate our approach; you know their 'divide and conquer' routine."

Consulting his Hunter, Mycroft looked thoughtful. "Back by midnight," he said, curving a hand around the side of her face. "And we can devise our stratagem."

"I love it when you go all field-marshal on me," Cate covered his hand with her fingers. "Must be the idea of a man in uniform that does it."

The elder Holmes lifted an eyebrow. "In that case," he smiled down at her. "I'll try for eleven-thirty." Brushing a kiss across her lips, he turned to the front door. "And we shall have a full battle analysis."

His smile lingered as he walked down the steps to the waiting Jaguar, mobile already at his ear. "Progress?" Judging by the faint look of approval that touched his face, progress was satisfactory. "I'll be there in ten minutes," he said, sliding into the back seat. This would soon be over.

###

"Fancy a coffee?" Helen waited at her front door. "Given that we're already past our bedtimes, let's live dangerously and have some illicitly-late caffeine, shall we?" she grinned as he paid off the taxi.

"I'm game if you are," John shrugged back, holding the door open to Helen's house in St. John's Wood. For a first date, it had been brilliant.

"Make yourself at home," she called, walking into the kitchen and filling the kettle.

Feeling wonderfully full of fantastic Italian food and good red wine, John decided to do precisely that and kicked off his shoes as he relaxed into the embrace of a well-padded sofa. His day had been manic and he could feel sleep creeping up on him, so coffee was a welcome idea; he didn't want this evening to end just yet.

"Here you go," Helen Madly handed him a cup of very decent plunger coffee. He sipped it appreciatively.

"You're amazing, you know?" he smiled across at the woman he hardly knew. "Clever, gorgeous, great taste in men ..."

Helen laughed, leaning in until she rested against his chest. "Yes, to everything," she agreed, fixing him with her dark eyes. "Although you haven't even mentioned the _really_ interesting things," he voice dropped to a soft murmur as her fingers stroked down the line of his jaw. John tensed slightly as a different kind of heat warmed him.

"Yeah, well," he held her eyes with his, only inches between their bodies. "Being a gentleman, and all tha ..." his words ceased entirely as Helen leaned a little further in and kissed him slowly and deliberately, her fingers weaving through his hair as his arms reached around her and held her against his chest.

"I've had a lovely evening," she whispered. "I don't get the chance for many evenings like this," she added, rubbing his nose with her own. "I don't want it to end."

"Plenty of other nights ..." John felt a wash of chianti-fuelled desire tingle in his chest and points south.

"Take me to bed, please," Helen pulled his bottom lip between her teeth, her fingers stroking whatever flesh she could reach. "If you want to, of course," she added, leaning back and watching the expressions cross his face. "Unless you really do have a boyfriend."

"I don't have a boyfriend," he gasped, his hand mingling with her hair and pulling her mouth back to his.

"The bedroom's through there," she giggled, pointing to a door behind them. "I'll just be a minute in the bathroom."

Sitting on the edge of the large bed, John was quite aware he had a silly look on his face, but quite frankly, was beyond caring. He'd risked life and limb today; helped saved two small children and defeated the fiendish tunnels of London. He deserved a little relaxation. He pulled his jumper over his head and started unbuttoning his shirt.

"Everything okay in here?" Helen came in, wearing the shortest of micro-nighties; about as far from the scientific as might be imagined. John felt his face stretch into a wide grin.

"Said you were gorgeous," he growled, lifting his arms to her.

"Now just hold it right there," Helen Madly's voice changed suddenly, assuming a chilly undertone as she touched the back of each of his hands before stepping swiftly away.

Looking down to where she had touched him, John felt his blood chill as he saw not one, but _two_ black spiders sitting motionless, their delicate legs feeling the new environment.

Smiling, Helen shrugged into a robe and picked up a small spray-canister. "I can kill them in a second," she said. "But not before you tell me what you and that tall, skinny friend of yours were doing in my lab yesterday. I have hidden cameras," she announced fiercely. "I saw everything."

The way she spoke; the strange look in her eyes ... that fact that everything Sherlock was concerned about might be connected to her ... John realised she had no intention of killing the spiders.

Helen Madly had no intention of allowing him to live.

Unable to lift his gaze away from the two dainty arachnids, his skin began a terrible itching. He wanted nothing more than to mash both spiders against the bed and walk away from this crazy situation.

"No sudden moves or loud noise," the scientist warned. "They are so very sensitive to both, aren't you my darlings?" Helen Madly made some faint clucking noises. John tensed again as he saw the spiders raise a couple of front legs as if listening to the insane person a few feet away.

"You're making a serious mistake, Helen," he kept his voice as calm as he could. "Sherlock knows I'm with you and if I turn up dead, especially dead of spider bites, where do you think he's going to begin looking? Right at you, that's where."

"Oh John, my lovely little soldier," Madly crooned. "Nobody's ever going to find your body, you silly thing," she laughed softly. "There are a lot more creatures at the zoo than spiders. Some even have very large teeth."

About to protest that he wasn't worth killing, something stuck in his chest and he decided if he was going to die tonight, it wouldn't be on a bed in St John's Wood. In a single movement, he stood, flicking each hand towards the woman who stood not three feet away. If the spiders bit him, then so be it, but he'd be damned if he was going calmly wait for such a gruesome death.

Screaming, Helen batted at something on her face, spraying everything as one of the spiders decided it didn't much like the treatment it was getting.

There was the sound of heavy running feet on the stairs right before the bedroom door burst inwards.

" _John!_ " Sherlock took in the scene. "Are you bitten?"

"No, but she might have been," the blonde man rubbed a hand over his face as he reached for his discarded jumper.

" _John!_ " Lestrade almost fell into the room. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, fine," he said. "Better make sure Madly doesn't have any more creepy-crawlies she wants to share with us, though."

"I did try and warn you, John," Sherlock watched as Sergeant Donovan appeared, raising her eyebrows at the sight of a white-sleeved, dark-blue American university jacket hanging behind the door. "I did say you didn't know her."

"You never said she was likely to sic her pet killers onto me though, _did you?_ " John began to feel enormously angry. "A little heads-up in that quarter, you know, just _something_ along the lines of 'don't have dinner with Helen Madly because she breeds killer spiders and will probably try and feed you to them' _wouldn't have gone_ _amiss!_ " he yelled.

A small black shape scuttled across the carpet. He stamped his foot down with more than a little satisfaction.

"Sorry," Sherlock attempted contrition as they walked into the lounge. "Madly's involvement was clear in the documents I found on the USB in the spider tank," he explained. "The zoo was able to stop selling spider-venom because a private benefactor wanted Doctor Madly to breed a more venomous spider and test the killing potential on specific individuals."

"So it was her all along?" John dragged his coat on. "And you knew?"

There was a pregnant pause. "Yes."

"And you decided not to tell me?"

"Correct," Sherlock looked. "We needed to provoke her into making a mistake."

" _We?_ " a dreadful suspicion made John's eyes narrow.

"Mycroft and I ... we needed Madly to attack ... someone ... in order to gain leverage over her benefactor ... I knew what she was likely to do and had Scotland Yard standing by, as you can see," Sherlock waggled his fingers towards the brightly lit police cars through the window.

"And just _who is_ this mysterious benefactor?" John demanded, unappeased. "Is Mycroft trying to provoke him too?"

Checking his watch, the younger Holmes nodded. "Very soon," he smiled.

###

It was very late, but Huth-Gardiner was grimly determined not to sleep until his plan of sabotage and destruction was in place. It had taken over an hour before the emergency evacuation had been revoked and he had only just now regained the security of his office. It was still too warm, but he could live with it for tonight. Heads would roll tomorrow. Initialising his systems, he was about to enter his various passwords when a discreet voice stopped him cold.

"Good evening, Hugh," Mycroft stepped out of the shadows, the dim lighting leaving most of his face in darkness. "I'm surprised to see you here."

Still shocked at the unexpected appearance of another member of the Three, the genius economist held his tongue wondering what was happening.

"Nothing to say?" Mycroft walked a little further into the light, his expression distant and impassive. "Then perhaps I might start the conversation rolling," he beckoned towards the darker shade.

The silent, handcuffed figures of Dante and the Count were pushed forward.

"Taking me out of my office with a bomb threat was never going to be quite enough, was it, Hugh?" Mycroft's voice was softly chilling. "Not satisfied with having me leave my secure headquarters for the Bank of England; a place so thoroughly under your control you would instantly know of everything that transpired, you had to redirect my assistant as well; a foolish miscalculation on your part, I'm afraid," he added as an unsmiling Anthea stood at his shoulder. "And then there were all those dreadful deaths in London's parklands," he said.

With a muffled protest, Helen Madly joined the handcuffed men in the light. She too was manacled and silent.

"Nothing could be easier for you than to redirect a negligible amount of government funds towards Doctor Madly's experiments," Mycroft's voice lilted with certainty. "You should have taken more care to ensure she kept no records, but alas," he held up a tiny black and red USB.

Pausing, Mycroft looked down at the ferrule of his umbrella. "And then you decided to add a little spice to the game and begin hounding my wife with anonymous phone calls," Mycroft's smile was dreadful. "The most foolish idea of all," he added. "And all so you might have a free rein with Her Majesty's economy. Very unwise."

Huth-Gardiner blinked rapidly. They knew everything, it seemed. Everything about his plan. "You corrupted my systems so I couldn't input the changes?" he asked. "Arranged the emergency evacuation, the downed servers, the loss of the air-conditioning? All of it?"

The elder Holmes was silent, waiting for ... explanation? _Justification?_ But there was none. "Take him away," he said, eventually.

The room was cleared before Mycroft turned and spoke to the unseen presence still waiting for him. "We are agreed?" he asked as Maggie Sutton Wherry stepped into the light.

"We are," she acknowledged. "Has the replacement been notified?"

"Yes," Mycroft had vetted the candidate himself. "She will present herself in the morning."

" _She?_ " Maggie lifted her eyebrows. "Are we entering an age of equality?"

Mycroft smiled. "I can never be the equal of a woman," his expression relaxed as he met her eyes.

"A _double-entendre_ if ever there was," Maggie sighed. "Poor Hugh."

" _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ " the words were faint.

"That would be you, dear," Maggie patted the back of his hand and walked out of the office.

#

#

# **Almost the end** #

#

#

She was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and thinking hard. So much had changed in the last few weeks that she was re-evaluating the direction of her life.

Picking up the sheaf of large black-and-white photographs only recently arrived, Cate flicked through them, resting her eyes on the final picture. It was of her in a dark suit; kneeling up on a _chaise-longue_ , arms akimbo, an animation in her face and a fire behind her dark eyes. It was a brilliant photo and she knew she was going to have it enlarged and framed. She'd never have another one as good.

The house was very quiet with the children gone, and she was still unused to the absence of their laughing voices. It felt unnatural and she didn't much care for it, to be honest.

Nora had asked only that morning if they would be needing her now that the twins had started day-school, especially if Cate was still going to be working from home on her writing.

Holding the empty mug, her thoughts went round and around.

A key sounded in the front door and she smiled, wondering what the children would have to tell her about today. Would it be another shocked revelation that their teacher allowed them to use his first name? Or would they decide to lay out the secrets of every student in their current project-group? Every afternoon was something exciting and different, and she adored the fact that both children were blossoming so beautifully.

Even Mycroft, once he got over the horrific fact his babies were growing up, had agreed the developments were entirely positive. "Gives me more time with you," he murmured, finding the nape of her neck with his lips, entirely pleased with her shiver.

The front door opened and a stampede of small feet flew towards the kitchen as Blythe and Jules made their presence known, their hands full of rolled-up white paper.

"We spent _all_ afternoon painting, Mummy," Blythe couldn't wait and unrolled her work across the kitchen table.

Cate smiled at the subject matter. Mycroft might have to mount these in his office.

###

"And this one is?" his face was inscrutable as he examined Jules' painting before dinner, remarking to himself how much his son's figurative work had improved in only a few weeks.

"That's you being incredibly unreasonable," Jules pointed to an exceptional likeness of a tall besuited man with a furled umbrella; a look of deep cunning writ clear over the man's features. "And it has to go on the wall to the left side of Bly's," Jules placed his work next to his sister's piece which depicted Cate leaving home with a scarlet knapsack over one shoulder; a distinct _insouciance_ in her smile.

Mycroft's lips curved. The Adin side of the family had won this round.

###

"I've decided what I'm going to do," Cate poured him another glass of red wine as they sat listening to one of Bach's fugues.

Mycroft lifted his head, waiting, wondering what new form of madness was about to consume his life.

"I think it's high time I gave something back to the community," Cate watched the ruby liquid swirl around her glass. "I have the appropriate skillset and I've been thinking about it for a while."

"Skillset?" Mycroft raised his eyebrows.

"I can bend written and spoken language to my will," she said. "A wide number of languages in fact. I am without fear in the cut and thrust of impassioned, acrimonious debate, and not only am I able to kick arse in both a real and figurative sense, but I know spies with guns," she nodded slowly, enjoying the tang of the burgundy.

Inhaling deliberately, Mycroft shook his head. "You are _seriously_ thinking of ..?"

" _Yep_ ," Cate put her glass down and snuggled closer into his warmth. "I'm going into politics."

 

#

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**THE END**

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#

 

My thanks to everyone who has commented on this story. It's delightful to be able to provide such enjoyment and your thoughts have been most generous.

#

#

**NEW STORY ... ENCOUNTER**

Adventure and romance in a different kind of Omegaverse.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for Ne Plus Ultra, Mycroft Holmes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177649) by [Secoura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secoura/pseuds/Secoura)




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